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EU Approves Intel's McAfee Purchase After Interoperability Pledge

Posted by Soulskill on from the viruses-and-lag-inside dept.

An anonymous reader tips news that the European Union has given their approval for Intel's purchase of McAfee for $7.7 billion after the chipmaker promised it wouldn't try to stifle competition for other security programs running on Intel hardware or McAfee software running on rival hardware. "Under the agreement, Intel committed to providing other security vendors with the technology needed to tap the same functionality in its processors and chipsets available to McAfee. In addition, Intel pledged to continue having McAfee software support the products of rival chipmakers, which would include Advanced Micro Devices. The European Commission will monitor Intel for compliance. 'The commitments submitted by Intel strike the right balance, as they allow preserving both competition and the beneficial effects of the merger,' Joaquin Almunia, commission VP in charge of competition policy, said in a statement. 'These changes will ensure that vigorous competition is maintained and that consumers get the best result in terms of price, choice, and quality of the IT security products.'"

19 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. The US need an European Union by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Funny

    The US needs an EU-type agency to monitor our corporations and make sure they don't abuse the citizens, or monopoly power.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:The US need an European Union by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Too bad our existing agencies have sold out!

      --
      My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    2. Re:The US need an European Union by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You underestimate the potential for evil here: UEFI, baby.

      Your A/V could be a runtime service baked right into your motherboard, hooking its dirty little fingers into assorted peripherals and memory spaces all below the OS level. Progress!

    3. Re:The US need an European Union by JustOK · · Score: 2

      Yah, too bad that in the US, there's no union of states like that...

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      rewriting history since 2109
    4. Re:The US need an European Union by TheEyes · · Score: 2

      You underestimate the potential for evil here: UEFI, baby.

      Your A/V could be a runtime service baked right into your motherboard, hooking its dirty little fingers into assorted peripherals and memory spaces all below the OS level. Progress!

      Indeed. Thank God I can still buy AMD, though if Bulldozer doesn't bring them back into competitiveness in the server arena they might not be around much longer...

  2. Embedded AV? by donotlizard · · Score: 2

    So, I guess Intel may be working on embedding AV into their chips, or am I way behind here?

    1. Re:Embedded AV? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The logical assumption, as best I can tell, is that this will be showing up in Intel's Active Management Technology... in one form or another. Intel has been iterating this "AMT" for a while now, to provide various capabilities that things like PXE cannot, as a value-add to upsell corporate customers who would otherwise buy cheaper chips. There may also be some sort of blasphemous convergence with Intel's UEFI and hardware virtualization, to move AV right into the hardware, where the waste is harder to see and the competition finds it harder to dislodge...

  3. well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    well, as long as they *promise*

    did anyone check if they had their fingers crossed behind their back? did they pinky-swear?

    1. Re:well... by HomelessInLaJolla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Completely.

      So when the virus scan begins to become part of the hardware, and the hardware routines get optimized to the point where the OS begins to favor hardware (like who would choose software 3D over hardware 3D in today's gaming world?), then software AV becomes, more or less, obsolete.

      Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. Is that how it went?

      --
      the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
  4. What's the penalty for breaking that pledge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Intel could decide it'll be cheaper to break the pledge and pay a fine rather than uphold it.

    1. Re:What's the penalty for breaking that pledge? by dingen · · Score: 2

      Is a billion dollar high enough a fine for you?

      --
      Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
    2. Re:What's the penalty for breaking that pledge? by lp_bugman · · Score: 2

      If it results in over 1 billion profit. Yes.

      --
      BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
  5. 7.7 BEEELIUN dollars by Beerdood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is anyone else shocked that mcafee is worth this much, or somehow got 7.7 billion dollars? Wow.. As a company they're only focused on one product (anti-virus software) that's bloated, not free (like many equally useful alternatives, i.e. windows essential, avg, avast, malwarebytes, many more..). How could they be valued so high?

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    Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
    1. Re:7.7 BEEELIUN dollars by ronocdh · · Score: 3, Funny

      How could they be valued so high?

      Never underestimate how rich one can become by catering to users' ignorance. But yes, I agree: I'm shocked, too!

    2. Re:7.7 BEEELIUN dollars by Atroxodisse · · Score: 2

      McAfee has dozens of products, many of which are first in their class. Ever heard of EPO? McAfee is everywhere in the corporate world and Risk and Compliance Software is really taking off.

      --
      Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
    3. Re:7.7 BEEELIUN dollars by BitZtream · · Score: 2

      Because it comes preinstalled on millions of computers year and has recurring revenue due to its subscription model?

      Its worth money due to shear volume, the recurring revenue from the uneducated who don't realize they're getting shafted by 'renewing' it instead of getting some software that doesn't suck means they have a very large potential for incoming even if they aren't making a fortune right this instant.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:7.7 BEEELIUN dollars by dancinfrandsen · · Score: 2

      The corporate world is where the $$ is at and McAfee has a huge presence there. They offer just about everything along the computer security spectrum - firewall, endpoint protection, whole disk encryption, NAC, IPS, comliance services, blah, blah, on and on. I'm not saying they are the best, but they are big.

  6. McAfee by 56ker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been called out many times to clients complaining of slow computers. The reason they're slow is bloatware software like McAfee or Norton has been installed. These companies just prey on the gullible, then milk their victims yearly with extortionate amounts for yearly virus definition updates. I've lost track of the times people have called saying their computer is suffering from a virus, when it isn't and it's a hardware related fault. The media unfortunately help companies like McAfee spread so much fear about viruses that some consumers are frightened into buying their product. There are free options out there, many of which don't have such deleterious effects on computer performance and don't pop up with nagging messages each time the user wants to do something simple.

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    Video Game cheats, hints a
  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion