Steve Bennett was named president and CEO of Symantec (News - Alert) – replacing Enrique Salem in the midst of concerns the security company was underperforming. Bennett, who is the company’s chairman of the board, will stay on in that position, too.

“Enrique Salem has been a significant contributor during his 19 years’ associated with Symantec, including the last three years as CEO," Bennett said in a company statement. "While progress has been made over the last three years in many areas, it was the board’s judgment that it was in the best interests of Symantec to make a change in the CEO.”

“My view is that Symantec’s assets are strong and yet the company is underperforming against the opportunity,” Bennett adds. “I’m looking forward to working with the team to build upon the significant assets in place to help Symantec accelerate value creation for all of its stakeholders.”

The decision to appoint a new CEO did not result from any wrongdoing.

“The board’s decision to make a leadership change was not based on any particular event or impropriety but was instead made after ongoing consideration and a deliberative process,” Dan Schulman, Symantec’s new lead director, said. “We are fortunate as a board to be able to name Steve as CEO and achieve continuity in leadership. Steve understands the company well, had a great track record at Intuit (News - Alert) and General Electric and is a perfect fit for moving the company forward.”

Bennett was named to Symantec’s board of directors in February 2010 and became chairman in 2011. At Intuit, he was president and CEO between 2000 and 2007. During his watch, Intuit revenue increased to $2.7 billion in fiscal 2007 compared to less than $1 billion in fiscal 2000.

Bennett worked for 23 years at General Electric, too. Also, he is now on boards at American Airlines and parent company AMR Corporation, and at Qualcomm (News - Alert). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin.

In a related matter, Symantec fiscal first-quarter profit fell 9.9 percent.

Also, in a recent report, The Wall Street Journal says the company is trying to change the business model to regular subscription revenue instead of sales of licenses.

Symantec predicts revenue for the current quarter to be between $1.64 billion and $1.67 billion. Analysts told Thomson (News - Alert) Reuters that revenue would be $1.69 billion, The Journal said.

For the quarter ended June 29, Symantec saw $172 million in profit compared to $191 million in the same quarter during the prior year.

“Symantec delivered another solid quarter,” Bennett said in a statement about the latest quarter. “The company’s investment in cloud security and mobility continues to gain momentum and position us well worldwide. We are making progress on many fronts, but believe we can further accelerate the company’s value to employees, customers, partners and shareholders.”

“We delivered record June quarter revenue and deferred revenue, as well as growth in earnings per share despite an 11 percent foreign currency headwind,” James Beer, executive vice president of Symantec, added. “We saw strength in endpoint protection, consumer security, authentication services, data loss prevention, and backup appliances.”

Earlier this year, Salem said the company’s customers were moving toward cloud delivered services, according to TMCnet.

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