One of the big news stories this week is Intel’s purchase of McAfee, one of the two biggest security software companies — and there’s a reason why you should care.
But before we get to that, there’s been a number of reactions to the news from industry observers. Among the most prevalent has been surprise followed by mild bewilderment: why would Intel buy McAfee which, as The Register pointed out, is a big company but doesn’t develop exceptional technology? “There’s nowhere from anti-virus to IPS to mobile security where its products particularly stand out,” said the story.
So why would Intel want to buy it, especially for $7.76 billion — 62 percent over the McAfee’s stock market valuation?
Intel sees the future as mobile: people are switching to smaller devices as chips become more capable. And where the market goes, surely malware will follow. And this is why you care. You might be using a desktop today — you might even be using a desktop in 20 years time — but the people who don’t own a desktop — or even a desk — won’t be, and they outnumber you hugely.
Those people will need protection against malware and they’ll need it built into the hardware, preferably the CPU, and that’s why, I suspect, Intel wanted McAfee — although there must have been some other technology under development that we don’t yet know about, as McAfee’s publicly visible technology on its own seems unlikely to command such a huge price.
Despite Intel’s investment, it seems unlikely that McAfee’s anti-virus technology will change much — and there are much better offerings out there from smaller, more agile companies, even those such as Avast who develop technology you don’t have to pay for.
If you doubt it, check out the specialist anti-virus site Virus Bulletin. It recently tested a range of AV packages, and avast’s free Antivirus was a top performer in VB’s battery of malware detection tests. It detected all in-the-wild viruses and scored better than some of the best-known paid products, including those from both McAfee and Symantec. This shows that cost isn’t the sole measure of quality of an AV package.
Avast makes a splash
Some Avast news now — and it should mean that Avast’s technology will continue to improve. Avast has landed an investment of $100 million from growth equity investor Summit Partners in return for a stake in the company. This is, said Avast CEO Vince Steckler, “a vote of confidence in our disruptive ‘freemium’ business model, which combines a full-fledged free product with a premium one.”
Although the company hasn’t said what it’ll do with the money, the investment suggests that Avast now has greater financial stability and can spend on developing its technology further, as well as reaching out to the 80 percent of desktops and laptops that don’t yet run Avast.
I’ll bring you more news of this as I get it.
