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Intel Completes McAfee Acquisition

Posted by Roblimo on from the are-we-secure-yet? dept.

angry tapir writes "Intel has completed its US$7.68 billion acquisition of security vendor McAfee, the chip maker has announced. The all-cash deal makes Intel a security industry powerhouse, giving it a broad range of consumer and enterprise security products. Intel had been working to get the deal approved by US and European Union regulators since it was announced last August. The European Commission, in particular, had expressed concerns that Intel would give McAfee special treatment when it came to its processors and chipsets, locking other security vendors out of the technology."

13 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. I still don't get it... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can understand(with their push toward embedding lots of exclusive features in their chipsets: IAMT) why they might want an AV company; but why McAfee? 7.68 billion will buy you a damn lot, including a variety of smaller vendors with better technology. As for brand name, Intel already has that. Why McAfee?

    1. Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      McAfee essentially has a government sector "monopoly," I believe, when it comes to AV. All other providers must "plug" into McAfee's products, but McAfee decides which vendors they will allow in... any product they see competing against them doesn't get to plug in, if I'm not mistaken.

    2. Re:I still don't get it... by jrumney · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why McAfee?

      McAfee was found to be the best option for keeping customers on the CPU upgrade cycle.

  2. Future chips will have built-in anti-virus? by rs1n · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm curious why Intel would be interested in acquiring an anti-virus company. What assets would be useful to a chip-maker? Do they plan to integrate anti-virus into their chips? Or does having access to McAfee's assets somehow give Intel insight into how to improve the security of personal computing via specially designed chips? Does anyone have any idea why this was a "good move" for Intel?

    1. Re:Future chips will have built-in anti-virus? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm curious why Intel would be interested in acquiring an anti-virus company

      Over the past few years, Intel has created chipsets for endpoint management - Intel vPro, Intel Anti-Theft etc. To date, Intel is dependant on third-party ISVs to integrate with this technology (LANdesk etc.) - ISVs that often work at a pace different from Intel. Additionally, to have success with these products Intel needs to sell to end-users, something they're ill equipped to do (other than promoting the "Intel Inside" message). McAfee provides Intel with a software maker how can hook into their chipset, along with a mature and sophisticated sales organization used to selling to end-users.

    2. Re:Future chips will have built-in anti-virus? by thinc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I work for a McAfee reseller and can tell you that they are more than just AV. They spent the last several years making a lot of acquisitions. Now they offer enterprise firewall, IDS/IPS, data loss prevention, endpoint encryption, content filtering, and mobile device security, among others. Now I'm not gonna say who's products are better or worse since I'm obviously biased but McAfee definitely is more than just AV and has a big presence in the enterprise.

  3. Almost worth it by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 5, Funny

    $7.68 billion sounds almost worth it to make sure everyone at the company is fired and never allowed to write software or answer phones or manage a business again.

    I mean, I didn't read TFA but I can't imagine any other reason for buying McAfee so that has to be the reason, right?

    1. Re:Almost worth it by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Please, g*d, let it be so. McAfee is second only to Norton in the amount of effort required to remove it, and the resources it hogs. Please let this be something Intel did for the better ment of society, to rid it of one of the AV companies completely. May Norton be next, Allah be praised.

  4. In related news by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Inspired by Intel's purchase, Microsoft buys HBGary for 7 squintillion dollars.

    --

    Operator, give me the number for 911!
  5. Patents most likely by assemblerex · · Score: 3, Insightful

    480+ patents; same reason why amd bought ati and probably with equally as disastrous results.

  6. Hmm by greentshirt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Most plausible answer: Deep in Intel R&D labs, Skynet gained self-awareness and decided to act against McCaffee through an acquisition. Either that, or someone at acquisitions fucked up after being ordered to "go out and buy me a coffee"

  7. Speaking as an admin ... by khasim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I thought the same - doesn't McAfee's software suck?

    Speaking as an admin who is stuck supporting McAfee's ePO for a few thousand workstations ... yes, yes it does.

    Unfortunately, all of the other vendors also suck.

    And STILL McAfee doesn't have a bootable CD with their product on it.

    And their "enterprise" distribution methodology sucks bandwidth (why send the ENTIRE 100MB+ file to each distribution point instead of just a diff file).

    1. Re:Speaking as an admin ... by anexkahn · · Score: 3, Informative

      I deal with the DAT distribution problem by using a Windows DFS Share. I created a DFS Share which replicates to each office, then Mcafee dumps the DAT and other files onto the DFS Share. Windows then does the differencing using RDC (Remote Differential Compression). The workstations are setup to use a secondary repository which points to the DFS share.

      Doing it this way means I don't have hundreds of computers pulling their DATs over the WAN and there is less to send over the WAN because of RDC.

      I agree that Mcafee should do something about this, but I have found this to be the best method of DAT distribution at this time.

      --
      Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out