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Restructuring and transition: We have engaged in various restructuring and transition activities over the past several years that have resulted in costs associated with severance, facilities costs, and transition and other related costs. Transition and other related costs consist of severance costs associated with acquisition integrations in efforts to streamline our business operations, consulting charges associated with the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning system, and costs related to the outsourcing of certain back office functions. Each restructuring and transition activity has been a discrete event based on a unique set of business objectives or circumstances, and each has differed from the others in terms of its operational implementation, business impact and scope. We do not engage in restructuring or transition activities in the ordinary course of business. While our operations previously benefited from the employees and facilities covered by our various restructuring charges, these employees and facilities have benefited different parts of our business in different ways, and the amount of these charges has varied significantly from period to period. We believe that it is important to understand these charges and, we believe that investors benefit from excluding these charges from our operating results to facilitate a more meaningful evaluation of current operating performance and comparisons to past operating performance.

Acquisition/divestiture-related expenses: The authoritative guidance on business combinations requires us to record in the statement of income, certain items that at the time of an acquisition would have been recorded to goodwill under the old authoritative guidance. We have excluded the effect of acquisition-related expenses from our non-GAAP operating expenses and net income measures. We incurred expenses in connection with our acquisitions, which we generally would not have otherwise incurred in the periods presented as a part of our continuing operations. Acquisition/divestiture-related expenses consist of professional service expenses. We believe it is useful for investors to understand the effects of these items on our operations. Although acquisition/divestiture-related expenses generally diminish over time with respect to past transactions, we generally will incur these expenses in connection with any future transactions.

Non-cash interest expense: Effective April 4, 2009, we adopted authoritative guidance on convertible debt instruments, which changed the method of accounting for our convertible notes. Under this authoritative guidance, our EPS and net income calculated in accordance with GAAP have been reduced as a result of recognizing incremental non-cash interest expense. We believe it is useful to provide a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes this incremental non-cash interest expense in order to better understand the long-term performance of our core business and to facilitate the comparison of our results to the results of our peer companies.

China VAT refund: During the December 2012 quarter, we received a tax incentive from the China tax bureau in the form of value-added tax ("VAT") refunds. The tax incentive is provided to software companies that perform research and development activities with respect to software in China. The refunds relate to VAT collected on qualifying software product sales during the periods from January 2011 through December 2012. This tax incentive plan was updated late in 2011 and it enabled companies to retrospectively apply the incentive back to January 2011. To maintain comparability of results across periods, we have excluded from our non-GAAP financial measures the portion of the refund representing periods ended prior to the December 2012 quarter.

Release of pre-acquisition tax contingencies: On December 2, 2009, we received a Revenue Agent's Report from the IRS for the VERITAS 2002 through 2005 tax years assessing additional taxes due. We contested $80 million of tax assessed and all penalties. As a result of negotiations with the IRS Appeals in the December 2011 quarter, we remeasured certain tax accruals related to this matter. Accordingly, we realized a benefit to GAAP net income of $52 million and a non-GAAP benefit of $10 million. The non-GAAP benefit was due to the reversal of accrued interest attributed to the VERITAS tax assessment that was recorded to our income statement during post-acquisition periods. Accordingly, the amount of these accruals has not been excluded from Symantec's non-GAAP results. In the quarter ended December 2012, we executed the final closing agreement for the VERITAS 2002 through 2005 tax years and recorded a further benefit to GAAP net income of $3 million and a non-GAAP expense $2 million, based on the closing agreement, as well as a GAAP benefit of $2 million for the adjustment of other pre-acquisition tax accruals. The non-GAAP expense was due to the additional accrual of post acquisition related interest.



MEDIA CONTACTS:
Cris Paden
Symantec Corp.
650-527-5526
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Smita Rode
WeberShandwick
415-262-5977
Email Contact

INVESTOR CONTACT:
Helyn Corcos
Symantec Corp.
650-527-5523
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