THE TIMES 100 : The Best Performing Companies in California : RISING FORTUNES : Symantec Plays Cinderella as It Debuts on List at No. 4 : Software: The Cupertino-based company posted the biggest sale growth, a 127.2% increase.

In the world of computer software, Symantec Corp. is this year’s Cinderella.

“A sexy stock in an unglamorous niche,” Investor’s Daily aptly describes the Cupertino-based firm.

Symantec’s attractions are reflected in its dazzling leap to No. 4 on this year’s Times list of 100 California companies with the sharpest sales growth. Symantec’s sales grew an enchanting 127.2%.

The company didn’t even make the chart a year ago.

Run by a hard-driving former Navy officer, Symantec during calendar 1991 saw its earnings rise 271% over 1990, making it No. 11 among California companies ranked by two-year average return on equity. Its return on equity for the period was a whopping 29%.

(Symantec’s fiscal year ends March 31, but for consistency, MZ Group, which does the Times’ rankings, used the four quarters ended Dec. 31.)

The company’s strong 1991 showing helped make Symantec No. 1 among California companies ranked by market value as a percent of book value. And on the list of Wall Street favorites, Symantec ranked No. 17 in ratio of market price to sales. In other words, investors expect a lot from this company.

The unglamorous engine for all this growth has been some smart acquisitions--seven since 1987--in the nooks and crannies of the personal computer world.

Symantec’s market is in programs that retrieve lost files, keep order in the computer’s house and which, with much-praised foresight, have become standard add-ons tied to the exploding sales of the increasingly ubiquitous Microsoft Windows program, 10 million copies of which have been sold since 1990. Windows now comes standard on many home computers.

Analysts estimate that 65% of Symantec’s revenue derives from such “utility” programs, most of which have been brought into the company from a business strategy that two years ago absorbed historic Peter Norton Computing Inc. To computer buffs, the name Norton is almost synonymous with utilities.

This is in intentional contrast to such powerhouses with different goals as Borland International Inc., the Scotts Valley, Calif., software maker known for its “barbarian” management philosophy--to stay disciplined, flexible and fast-moving.

Borland turned in a fierce performance in its own section of the market, which is spreadsheets, as well as 60% to 70% of the U.S. database market. Borland ranked first in 1991 sales growth in The Times 100 listings. Like Symantec, Borland owes much of its success to careful acquisitions, notably its absorption last year of the larger Torrance-based Ashton-Tate Co., owner of the industry standard dBASE program.

Borland, however, must wait to reap its rewards. Unexpectedly high charges associated with the Ashton-Tate purchase left the company with a loss in the first three quarters of fiscal 1992 of about $81 million.

Both companies are “riding a personal computer software wave,” says technology analyst Maynard G. Brandon, vice president of Duff & Phelps, “and there’s a couple of crests to that wave.”

First, Brandon says, is Windows. The second crest, coming soon, will be conversion to the 32-bit multi-tasking operating environment--meaning that personal computers will be better able to perform many tasks at once.

The more tasks, the more software needed.

Indeed, while applications software for PCs grew 24.6% in 1991, according to the Software Publishers Assn., sales of Windows applications in particular increased 196%.

“That’s why these people grow fast,” Brandon says.

“The momentum behind Windows is helping to accelerate the whole market,” agrees Symantec Chief Executive Gordon E. Eubanks Jr., a former engineering officer on the nuclear submarines George Washington and Gurnard and who founded the company in 1982. He took Symantec public in 1989.

Eubanks sees another force driving the software business.

“Machines are getting cheaper and cheaper,” he says, “and people are really saying, ‘You know, I could have one of these at home.’ ”

Meanwhile, Symantec continues to search for acquisitions. A company team scrutinizes as many as 10 possible buys each week. Says Eubanks: “Acquisition is the way we look at sourcing of new products and new technology.”