Shareholders voted today to approve security software maker Symantec Corporation's takeover of Veritas Software Corporation, allowing for potentially the largest merger ever in the software industry. The stock deal, announced in December, was initially valued at $13.5 billion, but is now expected to be worth about $11 billion. Despite the shrinking value of the takeover merger, it is still expected to surpass Oracle's $10.6 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft late last year. Analysts expected stock holders to approve the deal, despite a recommendation against it from an influential advisory firm that called the deal unwise. One of the concerns was that Veritas' business of making storage software is unrelated to Symantec's strength of providing programs that secure personal computers. Symantec's expansion is seen as a way to protect itself from Microsoft Corporation's move into the computer security business. --SP 2112 Local Time 1812 GMT
