Intel buys McAfee. No, seriously.

[ShawnD1]

To be clear McAfee software for home does suck.

But their enterprise software is amazing. ePolicy Orchestrator is what really makes McAfee so great in the enterprise.

Symantec and Kaspersky do not have anything near the power of ePolicy.

I've used all 3 in the enterprise.

My university computers all had McAfee on them, but the computers were not able to stop a USB virus from spreading around. Totally worthless AV.

 

[JJChicken]

This is the hope and change I've been waiting for.

Told you I'd deliver

 

[Born2bwire]

Would it surprise anyone if I said that Intel has a crapton of software engineers?

I have no idea what you are talking about...

/me runs ifort.exe

 

[ForumMaster]

we have McAfee Enterprise at work (i freakin' hate it!) and it has added 16, yes no less then 16 services to my task manager that i can't disable. Various drivers and services that take an incredible amount of resources. not to mention the fact that it doesn't work...

 

[StrangerGuy]

What's the point of third-party AV apps when evil Microsoft has their own MSE for free. And better too.

 

[PottedMeat]

we have McAfee Enterprise at work (i freakin' hate it!) and it has added 16, yes no less then 16 services to my task manager that i can't disable. Various drivers and services that take an incredible amount of resources. not to mention the fact that it doesn't work...

so this is their plan, add more unremovable bloat to their already big user base then sell more high end processors :awe:



aww it isn't intel saying 'hey guys, pick one company you hate, we'll buy it, and dissolve it for laughs'

 

[ShawnD1]

so this is their plan, add more unremovable bloat to their already big user base then sell more high end processors :awe:'

More like it would sell more solid state drives made by Intel. AV programs don't use a lot of CPU, but they ass rape your hard drive. It's always looking for things, adding lag time, wasting power by making sure the hard drive LED is on 24/7 while the drive is forced to read the exact same file repeatedly in a loop labeled as "while(1) {cause lag}"

 

[Bryophyte]

I find it interesting to see how often they time the announcement of things like this to coincide with the day that the price for their employees' Stock Purchase Plan is set. I mean, it's not like they'd benefit from the stock price suddenly dropping. :rolleyes;

 

[Barfo]

Intel CEO: "We need antivirus, can someone buy me McAfee?" Few hours later: "Done." "Great, which version?" "Version ... ?"

 

[zinfamous]

1) Shitty anti-virus makes computer slow
2) Consumer blames CPU
3) CPU company buys shitty anti-virus
4) CPU company destroys shitty anti-virus
5) Problem solved

haha.

the reporting of this deal, via local news (san jose) and marketplace on NPR was pretty damn terrible:

Marketplace intro: "Now the company that creates the product to store that data is one step closer to storing that data securely." the fuck? (yes they make ssd's now, but this certainly isn't what the mainstream knows about Intel)

some other expert talking about how their plan is obviously going into hardware anti-virus protection--fair enough--but no details, or even knowledge that such is worthwhile. Just that "It's a brilliant move, and it makes perfect sense."

 

[endervalentine]

I find it interesting to see how often they time the announcement of things like this to coincide with the day that the price for their employees' Stock Purchase Plan is set. I mean, it's not like they'd benefit from the stock price suddenly dropping. :rolleyes;

It does matter right? I think their employees are able to put 5% towards EPP, and their purchase price is 15% of either the lowest between the first and last day.

 

[SagaLore]

Intel CEO: "We need antivirus, can someone buy me McAfee?" Few hours later: "Done." "Great, which version?" "Version ... ?"

This is one of the funniest things you've ever said! :awe:

 

[TheSpy007]

I do like Mcafee group shield and the epolicy orchestrator. It has a nice centralized interface for managing computers on a small network. I wonder what intel plans to do. This could give a big advantage if newer intel chips made mcafee run more efficiently.

 

[digiram]

Great, they're gonna put safeboot right on the friggin core.

 

[Sahakiel]

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that AMD acquired ATI a couple years back...that kind of makes sense as they're both in business in computer hardware.

Actually, it made a lot of sense at the time. CPU's were getting smaller, transistor budgets bigger, but it's not as if you can simply slap on a bunch of cache and call it good. Diminishing returns kicks in and you're left with a bunch of wasted silicon.
Both Intel and AMD were looking at multi-core starting around 2000. Everyone was looking at SoC from the late 90's. AMD purchasing ATI was simply acknowledging the fact they have absolutely no experience with graphics. The chipset expertise was an added bonus, helping AMD improve that sector.
Intel didn't buy NVidia because they simply didn't have to. Their chipsets were essentially the gold standard and they had enough graphics expertise. There's no point (and no way) you're adding a high end gaming GPU to the CPU package any time soon, but integrated-level is more than enough.

Intel being a hardware company and MFE being a software company, doesn't make as much sense.

From a profitability standpoint, Intel must really be thinking about business/enterprise users as I think MFE makes most of its revenue from that line of business, as opposed to its consumer line.

Wonder if anybody is looking at buying Symantec. Their market cap is only ~$3B more than MFE but their revenues are ~4x MFE's.

Intel's been transforming itself into a "platform solutions" company for the past few years. It's essentially acknowledgment that they don't think the CPU will be profitable for long. Intel's strength has always been fab tech, but that's going down the tubes pretty fast.
I don't see the acquisition as far-fetched. Computer security is a growing problem even now. I don't doubt Intel will consider adding CPU features that accelerate AV. After all, they've been adding app-specific instructions to x86 all the way back to MMX. The current and possibly all currently developing McAfee software will probably remain as they are, but I have no doubt future versions will run noticeably slower on AMD hardware.
And it ties in splendidly with the whole multi-core vision of the future. What better front line defense than scanning every bit of data from every source as it enters your system?

Acquiring McAfee rather than Symantec may be a concession to anti-monoply laws. Less grounds for an investigation.

 

[fire400]

Keep in mind that McAfee is a premiere provider of security solutions to the US Department of Defense.

Intel has always been expanding to corporate and government sectors.

 

[LikeLinus]

Keep in mind that McAfee is a premiere provider of security solutions to the US Department of Defense.

Intel has always been expanding to corporate and government sectors.

Well that certainly explains this: http://www.dailytech.com/USB+Stick+...US+Military+Russia+Suspected/article19458.htm