Having acquired enterprise network management vendor Veritas, Symantec Corp. is hosing down speculation of Oracle-style mass layoffs in the region as the final details of the merger are stitched together.

Asia-Pacific director John Donovan has told Computerworld he expects staff cuts within Australia to be minimal because Symantec and Veritas have very little "staff overlap".

Quietly optimistic about the state of employment for Symantec employees in Australia, Donovan pointed to his CEO for guidance.

"It has only been three weeks since the first announcement was made and we currently have to go through legal regulations before we make any further announcements," Donovan said.

"John Thompson (Symantec CEO) said he is not expecting a lot of change in the merged company, which is what we will be concentrating on over the next couple of months. A lot of stuff still has to be sorted, and there is little overlap between the two companies," he said.

Veritas CFO Ed Gillis has been selected to lead the newly-created integration management office.

The joint effort will concentrate on planning for the sales, services and business development structure, outlining business lines and developing a technology roadmap, detailing the combined company"s go-to-market plans, integrating the services and support organizations and how to combine the finance, infrastructure and legal operations.

PricewaterhouseCoopers will act as infrastructure planning and implementation consultants, with Bain and Company selected to integrate customer-focused services.

Such information has not sated some Veritas customers in Australia who are still annoyed at the amount and timeliness of information given to them.

Users contacted by Computerworld said they remained frustrated, because account managers they deal with appeared to be gagged at the first sign of trouble.

IT manager for Sutherland Shire Council, Sid Curry, said he arrived back from his Christmas break to find Veritas gave him very little realistic information about what to expect in the coming year.

"We got some sort of communication from Veritas in the US ... after Christmas ... but it gave no detail of the relationship between us and the local organization, even though we deal directly with local account managers from Veritas," Curry said.

"It was all meaningless. We need to know what the merger will do for us. The silence is deafening," Curry said.