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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).
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
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.
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).
Well the only real difference to an IPO and buying shares on any stock
exchange is that :
(a) You are buying the shares direct from the company wishing to list, as it has never traded on that particular exchange before - there are no shares available on the general market.
(b) Because of this, you don't pay any brokerage and you are usually guaranteed the stock listing ( opening ) at a price higher than that it was
issued to you at. This is known as a "Stag Profit" - the cause of which is that there will be many investors who don't get the full allocation of shares that they applied for. Demand > Supply.
The general rule of thumb is to get your hands on a Prospectus ( application) and return it to the company or their Share Registry asap, no matter what is said in the media - First in Best Dressed.
Also if you know that demand will be strong for the stock and / or the prospectus sets out a certain minimum number of shares that each applicant will be either guaranteed of being allocated - this will usually mean that
all applications will be scaled back. This means that if you applied for 2000 shares, you may only be allocated 1000 - which means that your
application was scaled back by 50%, this will usually be done across theboard.
To overcome this, there will be usually more than one application form in each prospectus. Fill in as many as you can, with variations of your name
and address. This will hopefully come up as two different investors on the Registry and hence you will be allocated two lots of the minmum allocation.
The reason that more people do not get into IPO's is a matter of Education, Finance and Laziness. Education - people are becoming more familiar with the workings of the markets however haven't been as such in the past.
Finance - sometimes the minimum number of shares that one is able to apply multiplied buy the issue price can amount to a substanial sum of money, many haven't got this lying about.
Laziness - can't be bothered ringing around and chasing an application (Prospectus) as they are usually in short supply and many people give up
before even trying.
When the stock of an IPO lists ( debut ) on the market, people that missed out being allocated some shares through the application process will try and purchase some, this will drive the price up again Demand > Supply.
If one was to sell some stock that they were allocated thru the application process in an attempt to realise the "Stag Profit" ( rather than hold the stock long term ) they would sell the stock, on what is known as a Deferred
Delivery Basis. This will be the case because the Share Registry will not yet have sent out Holding Statements to those applicants that were successful in the IPO. This means that the seller cannot provide proof of their Holding, and the only way to find out your allocation is to ring the registry direct.
However if this seller was to live in another country, they would need to arrange the sale through a Broker that has a licence to Trade Stocks in the country of the IPO.
Here endth the lecture.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."