Security: Intel finalises their acquisition of McAfee

Chipset manufacturer Intel has finally overcome all anti-competition concerns, obtaining the green light for their acquisition of antivirus developer McAfee. They will now be able to start looking at deploying their hardware security policy in processors.

The announcement that antivirus developer McAfee would be acquired by Intel for 7.7 billion dollars was big news in the summer of 2010, revealing the chipset manufacturers increasing interest in security and their desire to make it one of their strategic pillars.

The announcement certainly led to some concerns being raised by antivirus editors, scared by the idea of seeing this lucrative market attacked by Intel who supplies processors to 80% of the world’s computers.

This uncertainty around the future was certainly made apparent to European regulators who demanded that guarantees relating to market access be provided to antivirus developers. Intel accepted and made a few concessions by assuring the market that their acquisition of McAfee was not a signal that the other editors would be attacked, with this leading to regulators granting their go ahead.


We can now anticipate some announcements
The American chipset manufacturer can therefore announce that they have finalised their acquisition of McAfee and can get down to work. The antivirus editor will continue to trade under their own brand and will maintain existing client services although the two companies will work together to come up with new security solutions for their platforms to better understand the latest market evolutions – notably in the number of Smartphone’s and mobile products available on the market (tactile tablets out front).

Intel has promised a new approach, combining hardware, software and services to reduce current and future threats (zero day fault exploitations) with connectivity options continuing to multiply and therefore increasing the entry points available to malware.

McAfee’s activities will be integrated into Intel’s Software and Services Group division, under the direction of Renée James who Dave DeWalt, president of McAfee, will report to.