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McAfee files for 57.5 Million IPO
LordOmar writes "According to this CNET article McAfee has filed for a 57.5 Million Dollar IPO. Don't even get me started on Weather Futures. " *sigh* And I can remember when they were just a shareware anti-virus coming. How times have changed (cue weepy music).
It's seems like IPOs are being announced right and left... please, I need to be enlightened, along with the rest of the slashdot crowd, about IPOs and stock. I haven't been around long.... have high tech companies been releasing IPOs like crazy only recently, or is this a pretty non-fantastic phenomenon... and if it is only a recent thing, what did we do before IPOs? This whole thing is beginning to frighten me.
You'll eat it and you'll like it.
What would happen if other operating systems other than those sold by Microsoft becomes popular and allows consumers to have security and privacy? Will the market for virus software and services decline? This is going to be a real interesting stock to watch if the actually do it.
Oh, McAffee,
you really make me laughee,
your software is so daffy,
makes my system run like taffy,
Oh McAffee,
for support you charge a high fee,
my disk drive you atrophe,
make me write songs just like Raffi,
(sorry, must have been the Wierd Al concert I went to last night)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
People forget that one of the original purpose of companies was to raise money to fund risky ventures to plunder ... errr .... trade with the New World. Given the state of navigation technology at the time, nobody in their right minds ventured everything on a single bet. Hence the development of syndicates, then Loyds to insure against loss, and stock exchanges to allow people to enter/exit various syndicates. Over time, the stock exchanges have evolved to the best gambling joint on earth (and of course you know that the only people that are guarenteed to make money is the house). As the old wag goes, "I invest, you speculate, he gambles". The essential role of modern stock exchanges is to shift risk onto people who are willing (and bright/dumb depending on viewpoint) to bear it with the mantra that returns match risk. Thus as a youngster with no life, you can afford to bet everything on obscure startups whereas retirees prefer steady income streams from things like utilities and blue chips.
If you think about human activities, a major determinant is the climate and weather. Sales of ice-cream soar on sunny days. Harsh winters push up demand of heating fuel. Derivatives are a mechanism for rapidly signalling events and allowing people to hedge and avoid being caught out by unexpected circumstances. Energy markets are going to be a key beneficiary as well as agriculture, tourism and discretionary events (if it gets rained out then you don't lose everything). Betting on the weather hedge funds that are likely to appear sooner is probably a surer thing that IMHO some of the current IPOs which seem to be scraping the barrel of good ideas.
Oh well, no laws against stupidity.
LL
Um... i remember way back when, there was an ftp that mcafee had that had all the licensed products just there to download. Amazingly, its still there. I know it may be just for registered users, but i find it amazing that after so long and after so many warez sites have this ftp, user, and pass, that it is still there, with the same user and pass.
But if its still there, how do they make the money? Did everyone just forget about it or something?
A new virus is propagating across the internet, it was announced today. Once the IPO virus, as it has been called, has infected a company, all communication from the infected area ceases imediately. The payload for this virus has not been fully classified yet, but has been termed the "buy! buy!" strain. However, a opposite strain, called "it's free - why buy it?" seems to counteract it, and regardless, after 90 days, the company seems to recover, and can communicate freely again
This virus is very common about companys closely related with the Linux product, and seems to be highly contagious, each company getting more infected that the former one. Thankfully, companys only seem to get infected once, and no reinfections are reported as of this date. There are rumors of a strain called an SPO, as yet unconfirmed...
An update to disable for this virus, called the MS Buyout, will be released shortly.
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Usually they tell us alot of stuff which we aren't allowed to disclose to the public, etc, release dates, known issues, etc, etc, etc, but since that is related to the product, and this is related to the business, does that mean they can't tell us? Most of my direct associates here have stock in Network Associates. How will this affect them? Mcafee IS Network Associates. Network Associates is not just Mcafee, but Network General as well. Its not two big companys in a co-op, its an actual corporation, a physical entity. How in the world does this work? I am at a loss and my boss has not heard of this either.
If I understand the concept, weather futures are a useful form of insurance for businesses.
Suppose I'm the CFO of UmbrellaCorp, and my company's income is proportional to the average annual rainfall in my state. If we have a dry year, the company gets minimal income and might go bankrupt. So, I go to BigBank, Inc. and buy a derivative whose value is inversely proportional to annual rainfall. The bank agrees to buy back the derivative at the end of the year. If we have a dry year, I make some money on my derivative to offset the loss of income; if we have a wet year, I lose some money on the derivative, but that's OK because I made beaucoup bucks selling umbrellas.
In effect, I pay BigBank to assume some of the weather-related risk to my business. The bank has a more diverse investment pool than UmbrellaCorp, so they can better manage the risk. They've also got a pile of weather analysts who can determine a fair price for the derivative, then charge me a bit more than that price so the bank makes money in the long run.
Commoditizing weather derivatives through an active exchange keeps them liquid (UmbrellaCorp can sell its instrument for instant cash in an emergency) and maintains their price near what everyone thinks is fair.
Of course, if Joe DayTrader with his 8192-node Beowulf cluster thinks he can predict the weather better than the average analyst, he's welcome to lose his shirt trying to outfox the market.
If you simply can't resist every IPO to come down the pike...
Have we got a deal for you! I bet you just can't live without a Stock Trading Yucca Plant! Yes, call us today to order your very own!
Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
1) You don't "reverse engineer" something that has documented source code made widely available.
2) You can't provide the "only" utility to disinfect if the "virus" itself has an option to perform disinfection.
After the starved for attention McAfee and their spin doctors got done with their press release of lies, Axel Boldt was nice enough to put together a web page that spell out the actual facts about the Bliss "virus." The web page has disappeared but the impact of McAfee's press release still remains on the web. One of the better pages still around is Stuart Luppescu's responce which is worth reading.
I don't see how such an unprofessional company can be worth a 57.5 Million IPO. Even if someone I trust came back from the future a told me that I could make millions by investing in McAfee now, I wouldn't based on princiable (just as I wouldn't invest in MicroSoft if I could go back in time).
Try this press release on for size.
As for you not knowing much, well, Po Bronson points out that there are clear lines between who gets to know stuff about IPOs; of course, it has to do with securities laws in the end, but the practical effect is to make certain things very secret, even from the people whose lives are materially affected by the outcome.
As to how it works, "Mcafee.com" can easily be a stock-issuing subsidiary to another corporation. It happens in the other direction all the time: one corporation investing in another by buying, say, 10% of its stock. In this case, the subsidiary is in a substantially-enough different business from the main corporation that they want to give investors the ability to "track" its success separately. This can be done by a special class of stock, or as a semi-public subsidiary.
Since the prospectus isn't available yet (that I can find), it's hard to tell how much stock is being made public and how much NAI is still going to own.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Seriously, investing in the stock market is not that hard, and is an excellent long-term risk ... emphasis on long-term.
... and how you can actually earn money in the market. Best of all, it's free! No, really!
People going for short-term profits, like the infamous day-traders, or who obtusely put all their life savings into penny stocks or something else inadviseable, are the people really taking risks. But as for the average person, it's really pretty easy to earn money in stocks.
The key is being willing to wait 20 or 30 years for your money to appreciate. Historically, stocks give an excellent rate of return -- upwards of 12 to 15%. (Try getting THAT from your bank.) The problem is that not every single stock appreciates like that, and frequently stocks do decline in price for a period of time.
For my money, and I mean that literally, the best place to learn is the Motley Fool. Start by browsing the Fool's School, and you'll hopefully have a better appreciation of how it all works
As for investing in risky things like the high-tech market, well, first of all: invest only in companies that you understand. And even then, invest only money that you can lose -- because you just might. And meanwhile, invest money you CAN'T lose (like your retirement fund) in tax shelters like 401(k) plans, IRAs, and so on -- and with proven techniques, mostly involving buying stocks and holding onto them for a Very Long Time, as opposed to trying to outguess the highs and lows of the market.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
What's interesting is that MCAF was generally a well-regarded company (they're a case study of a good investment in the Motley Fool's Investment Guide). NETA, on the other hand, is currently a poorly regarded company, due to major financial screwups and merger indigestion.
I wonder why they're being allowed to re-use the old MCAF ticker symbol. My guess is that it will basically fool people who hadn't paid attention over the past 2 years into believing that NETA's MCAF is the original MCAF.
Don't forget that the current MCAF (the IPO venture) is nothing but a web site that sells Network Associates consumer products. Nice trick, that --- "spinning off" your own marketing division into a seperate venture.