We’ve seen a trend in recent years, especially in the technology sector of acquisitions and consolidations. It’s been something Microsoft has been doing for a long time, acquiring smaller niche companies to improve/supplement their existing product lines.
In recent years the trends has shifted towards web services and of course security, many smaller security companies have been acquired, most recently would be the Sunbelt acquisition by GFI.
Back in 2007 Google Acquired Web Security Startup GreenBorder. There have been many others of course, a lot of which we haven’t covered as they are more business related than anything else.
Bruce Schneier has also been talking about these kind of acquisitions for over two years.
There has been a pretty unanimous WTF from the tech community as Intel isn’t even a software provider, they are a hardware manufacturer…and yes they’ve had some flaws in their products but does that justify spending almost $8 Billion USD to acquire a security company?
And well McAfee isn’t exactly highly thought of within the security community.
Both boards of directors have approved the deal, which is still subject to McAfee shareholder approval and regulatory approval.
Intel said the deal signalled its decision to put security on par with energy-efficient performance and internet connectivity as a strategic focus area.
“Today’s security approach does not fully address the billions of new Internet-ready devices connecting, including mobile and wireless devices, TVs, cars, medical devices and ATM machines as well as the accompanying surge in cyber threats,”
The details can be seen on Market Watch here.
And well McAfee don’t even provide hardware security functions, which is I assume what Intel is looking for. Who knows, this may just be a capital investment strategy from Intel and not particularly related to what McAfee produces.
Intel of course can benefit from the security knowledge McAfee has and integrate that into their hardware – but that is going to take some time.
Several security analysts have given their opinions of what this could mean and how it could effect Intel, McAfee and the industry in general.
Source: The Register