Intel has a large interest in mobile, virtualisation and network arenas; this isn't really as surprising as you make out.
Still not sure if I agree with the deal, and it does seem driven by a bunch of cash burning a hole in Intel's pocket.
Intel's stock only took a small dip, and it looks like some of those who left were shifting it to McAfee to ride the wave as the stock went up.
That's a lot of investors in an otherwise volatile market not jumping ship, so they must see something good in the deal that we're missing.
http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:INTC
Several other companies in that market went down a similar amount, so it doesn't seem to be extraordinary. I would expect a lot of tech investors to move their money to McAffe after that announcement hoping to get something out of it.
What matters is what happens after now. If it continues to go down for a long time, it might be a problem.
It seems strange that Intel is investing in this particular sector that leverages mostly Windows stuff. They should move out of Steve Ballmer's basement and make their own OS.
Why do they want to make software for platforms when their competencies are on hardware?
One that doesn't look like a antivirus program for Windows.
"They should move out of Steve Ballmer's basement and make their own OS." and "Why do they want to make software for platforms when their competencies are on hardware?" at the same time.
If they want to do software, they should develop a OS, maybe for Atom or some kind of mobile platform or otherwise.
Antivirus is back and to the left.
> maybe for Atom or some kind of mobile platform or otherwise.
I believe that's MeeGo (http://meego.com/).
"Why do they want to make software for platforms when their competencies are on hardware?"
Vendor lock-in and community are just as helpful for Intel as they are for other businesses. If they can grease the wheels for their primary business (even at a small loss), then it's not necessarily a bad idea.
Yeah, that won't have antitrust implications, or anything.
Disclosure: Used to work for Secure Computing, but not the snapgear division.
So! I'm officially bad luck with businesses (was around just as CompUSA got liquidated, now McAfee acquisition), anyone wanna hire an MIS major with a burning desire to learn stuff solely for the sake of learning?
But in all seriousness, I've been speculating over the reasoning behind Intel doing this, and haven't come to many conclusions. As some others here have stated, McAfee actually has quite comprehensive network security (I've obviously seen the network layouts / architectures), etc, and maybe Intel just wants to try and market that?
I have yet to come up with a good reason - they are pretty disparate companies from what I can tell. There are "some" common grounds, but not many.
McAfee also seems to be moving into different areas of computer security lately (PCI scans, etc), so it's not just anti-virus. I am not sure what % of their business this is though.
At least it's not obnoxious.
To most people, computer security is a mystery box inhabited by criminals who try and break in, and Mafia-like organizations who offer protection for a fee.
This seems like a very odd decision to me. Intel, a world leader in processor design, does not need to get into such a sleazy business as antivirus software.
Why not spend that $7.7 billion helping the world write better code?