Fyi: Symantec is seeking a buyer for their Altiris product line, including their flagship application deployment, virtualization and streaming tools: CMS & SWS. They're reportedly asking $800 million.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/symantec-puts-altiris-unit-block

http://www.crn.com/news/security/240146440/symantecs-possible-altiris-sale-prompts-partners-to-question-mobile-strategy.htm

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2013/01/15/symantec-puts-altiris-unit-on-the-block/

Does anyone out there know if one of the "big three' industry players out there are interested in buying it (Microsoft, Citrix, VMware)? I seriously doubt any of those companies would be interested in the technology itself, but they *might* possibly be interested in the Symantec customer base --and the additional market share that comes with it.

Reason I am so interested is, my company is in the unfortunate position of being smack in the middle rolling out CMS/SWS right now as our next-gen flagship distribution products (and before you ask, yes, we chose poorly). We are already having trouble getting Symantec to issue basic bugfixes for CMS and SWS, and thanks to the news, it's pretty clear now why that is. We saw a very similar pattern happen in the years before they announced Wise Package Studio was end-of-life. First, they stopped issuing service packs and major patches, then later even critical bugfixes became few and far between (despite sales team assurances to the contrary). Finally, they just basically abandoned the product and let it die on the vine. I am very concerned the exact same thing will happen again with CMS and SWS.