Symantec CEO John Thompson gave enterprise software vendors yet another reason for concern Wednesday when he said the world’s largest security software company is now seeing signs of diminishing sales in markets outside the U.S.
“I think there’s clearly been evidence that a number of economies around the world are slowing down,” Thompson told Reuters. “There have been a number of statements from a number of companies that would suggest something.”
While several high-profile technology executives — including Cisco’s John Chambers and AT&T’s Randall Stephenson — have bemoaned weak U.S. orders of late, Symantec is the first tech bellwether to suggest other countries are hurting as well.
This is especially bad news — or perhaps a convenient excuse — heading into the teeth of the quarterly and year-end earnings onslaught later this month. Symantec last quarter issued a tepid forecast for the coming fiscal year so maybe this is just a bit of heads-up to shareholders.