With its corporate customers slashing their security software spending, leading security software maker Symantec Corp. has issued a somewhat cautious profit and sales forecast for its fiscal second quarter, which fell short of the figures estimated by analysts.

In a statement pertaining to the forecast for the quarter ending October, the Cupertino, California-based company said that excluding some costs, it expects a profit of between 32 cents and 34 cents per share - while the average analysts' estimates had put the quarterly profit figure at 36 cents per share.

Symantec said that its earnings for the quarter that ended in early July had plunged to $73 million - or 9 cents per share - from the year before figures of $172 million, or 20 cents per share. The year-on-year revenue of the company fell from $1.65 billion to $1.43 billion.

In its attempt to cope with the falling revenue - resulting largely due to a cutback in technology expenditure by companies as well as the swelling competition from rival McAfee Inc - Symantec has frozen salaries of employees and has laid down sales quotas for them.

Commenting on the lower-than-expected quarterly forecast, Symantec's Chief Financial Officer James Beer said that corporate customers are focusing more on maintenance of their current software instead of buying new licenses; and added: "I wouldn't expect there to be any immediate reversal of this trend."