Networking chip giant Broadcom is in talks to acquire security software specialist Symantec for $15 billion, according to multiple reports including this one from Bloomberg.The report, citing anonymous sources, suggests a deal could be sealed within a few weeks. The news sent Broadcom's share price down by 3.54% to close Wednesday at $284.89 on the Nasdaq, while Symantec's stock gained 13.6% to close at $25.10, giving the company a market valuation of $15.52 billion.If a deal was to be struck, it would represent Broadcom's second software-centric acquisition in two years: The company bought CA for $18.9 billion last year, just months after abandoning its efforts to acquire Qualcomm. (That's a crazy sentence right there…)When it closed the CA takeover in November 2018, Broadcom immediately sold CA's Veracode security unit to Thoma Bravo for $950 million. At the same time, Symantec was acquiring two specialists, mobile security firm Appthority and endpoint protection startup Javelin Networks.If the reported Broadcom/Symantec talks come to something, it'll be fascinating to hear the rationale behind such a move, keeping in mind that Intel acquired software-centric security vendor McAfee in 2011 for about $7.7 billion and offloaded it in 2017 in a deal valued at $4.4 billion, having failed to achieve the anticipated synergies.Broadcom recently reported a 10% year-on-year increase in fiscal second-quarter revenues to $5.5 billion, while Symantec, which is currently being run by interim CEO Richard Hill, reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenues of almost $1.19 billion, slightly down year-on-year.For more on this, see:Broadcom Buys CA – Huh?Symantec Makes 2 Acquisitions, While Broadcom Dumps CA's Veracode UnitSymantec Seeks to Slash SaaS Security Response TimeAirTies Teams With Broadcom on WiFi 6Data Center Switching Enters the 400G EraThe Programmable Switch Era Is Here... At Last!McAfee's Independence Day— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading