Altiris was started in 1998 when Jan Newman and Kevin Turpin spun off the software arm of KeyLabs. KeyLabs was, and remains, a third party testing facility. The Altiris Software had been created at KeyLabs to manage the computers at KeyLabs and that software became the start of what is now Altiris. Altiris continues to develop software designed to help IT departments manage their networks and computers more efficiently.
In early 2000, Jan Newman who was then President and CEO brought in Greg Butterfield to take over the role of President and CEO. Under Mr. Butterfield's leadership, Altiris acquired Computing Edge in September 2000. Computing Edge's founder, Dwain Kinghorn, had come from Microsoft and helped to develop Microsoft's original Systems Management Server product (SMS). Computing Edge specialized in extending and enhancing with functionality that SMS lacked.
Altiris continued its market expansion by acquiring several other companies:
"News Release: Symantec to Acquire Altiris". Symantec. January 29, 2007. Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070208084308/http://www.symantec.com/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=20070129_02 ↩