Symantec likes to distinguish itself by saying it's the world's largest security software company, but CEO Enrique Salem says more of the company's solutions will come on purpose-built appliances.

At the Symantec Partner Connect conference in Orlando yesterday, Salem announced that a joint venture with China-based hardware manufacturer Huawei will produce appliance-based versions of many of the company's security protection products, such as network-based antivirus security, data loss prevention and e-mail security.

“Expect to see more of our solutions coming over the appliance form factor,” Salem said to more than 350 partners in attendance. “Expect to see more and more of our intellectual property to be delivered on appliances over the next 24 months.”

Symantec isn't necessarily a software-only company, and it does have a history in hardware-based security solutions.

Nearly a decade ago, Symantec bought Axcent Technologies for its VelociRaptor firewall. Symantec morphed that firewall into one of the first unified threat management (UTM) devices, called “Security Gateway” - designed for SMB and branch enterprise offices. But Symantec Security Gateway was hardly a hit, and Symantec abandoned the product line in 2006 and transferred customers to Juniper Networks for products and support.

However, Symantec isn't necessarily devoid of appliances and hardware. Its Brightmail e-mail security division has appliances, such as the Symantec Brightmail 8340. The Huawei Symantec joint venture last month unveiled the Huawei Symantec N8500 NAS, a high-capacity network-attached storage device designed for large data centers and cloud-based storage systems. And the company is already listing VPN and firewall appliances on its Website. The growing list of hardware security and storage devices being produced by the Huawei Symantec joint venture is getting some people to wonder aloud if Symantec is already a hardware company.

Perhaps a clue to the Symantec strategy is Salem's views on the company's cloud computing prospects. Symantec was one of the first security vendors to embrace managed security services when it bought RipTech in 2002. Last year, Symantec acquired MessageLabs—an early pioneer in e-mail security services—to bolster its competitive position against Google/Postini. While Symantec sees more business shifting to the cloud, Salem said that Symantec's near-term cloud revenue would grow but not transform the business.

“Software as a service will be 15 percent in five years. It's a $1 billion business. We need to offer it. We need to give customers choice, but most of it will be software and appliances on premises. If I'm wrong and it goes from 15 to 20, that's OK, but it won't be 50 percent,” Salem told partners.

Symantec isn't the only security company thinking that it needs a mix of appliances, software and services. Earlier this year, Websense released a Web-filtering appliance to its channel for sale alongside its managed services and software solutions. SonicWall (sponsor of this blog) recently announced a new hybrid appliance-cloud based system for e-mail and Web security. And Check Point is continuing to integrate the appliance acquired from Nokia with its security software blades to create more hardware security solutions.