Intel to buy McAfee in $7.7 billion deal

By on Aug 19, 2010 at 11:10 PM
Business August 19, 2010

Today, Intel announced that it would purchase antivirus maker McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash. The deal will see McAfee shareholders paid out at $48 per share, a 60% premium on the stocks current $30 price tag.  Intel CEO Paul Otellini had this to say: “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.” Intel and McAfee were advised by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley respectively.

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28 Comments

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  • Tony

    In what alternate universe is this company worth 7.7 billion dollars? Microsoft Security Essentials ranks in the top 5 and it’s free.

    • Jason

      Do you not realize the potential of this buy? Intel is buying McAfee for the intellectual property most likely, in an effort to integrate the security software more closely with their hardware, to develop a “superior” product. And with the amount of intel chips made, this could allow Intel to quickly get their software into a lot of computers in a short time. At least that the first thing that came to mind when I saw the headline.

      • George Popadiscolous

        “Intel is buying McAfee for the intellectual property”

        Intellectual property? McAfee. Ha ha ha. Unless you mean that IP that McAfee perfected…the ability to slow down any device it is installed on, perform poorly and make it impossible to uninstall. Then yes, i agree with you.

  • DROID

    I wish Google would buy Intel and just own about everything. They don’t make mistakes.

    • Right…

      They don’t make mistakes? Google’s security/privacy data practices are more than questionable.

    • Kevin

      They dont make mistakes….. google wave, nexus one i all i have to say.

    • George Gaydarcowitz

      Right… and Kev sound like they would make a beautiful couple.

  • http://Www.Twitter.com/mr530fly Shiron Ruize

    Inshould of bought this stock when I had a chance smh

    • Okasawa Jose

      It’s not too late to short Intel.

  • Android

    Wasn’t this story was verified as a hoax this morning?

    • Dave

      Not it was not… check out mcafee.com. Their homepage has info on it.

      This now also means WaveSecure is now also owned by intel as WaveSecure was sold to Mcafee just a couple weeks ago.

  • grrrr

    MSE is free and 0 resources are used.

    McAfee cost moola and hogs your resources.

    dont think its true.

    Intel should just feed some people chips for dinner…or feed a million people. something like that.

  • ron

    Get a Mac and be done with all this virus crap.

    • Tyler

      Typical “Macs can’t get viruses” person. I work in a Computer store, hate to break it to you but there are legit Mac viruses that were designed to target mac users. Nowhere near as many as Windows however, but that could be due to audience percentage. Mac has around what 10% of the market share? If I was making viruses I would target the largest group possible.

  • aerilus

    Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley really? are these the people you want advising you on a 7billion dollar deal. the only reason mcafee is still alive is because they are paying off pc manufacturers

  • Lime

    7 billion on garbage software. I’ve never had an antivirus and never will. They make it look like your computer can never be compromised, ever with this software. Fasle sense of security.

    • Moso

      You don’t run an antivirus? Cmon, you’ve got to be kidding.

      • Dara

        I haven’t slowed down any of my Windows computers with AV bloat in years.

        Just make sure you’re behind a real firewall, don’t run a local email client, use Firefox or Chrome, and don’t click on things that you don’t understand.

  • Matt Thompson

    I agree with most of you. McAfee is garbage.

  • Mr. Bill

    MSE ftw, McAfee or MC Fee’s is garbage, lost nuts an bolts.

  • http://www.cheshirephotocopiers.co.uk Cheshire Photocopiers

    Stranger things have happened.

  • http://www.thedigitante.com Andy

    I hope Intel is aware that they will have to pay $7.7 billion each year to renew this deal.

  • http://c3dude.wordpress.com c3dude

    i think we’re all forgetting something. THIS IS INTEL. Intel is more than capable of turning mcaffe into a viable security solution. However, here are some reasons why they’d even buy them.

    1 regardless of resource usage, they now have an antivirus software core that they can easily modify.

    2 as they said, this intel modified mcaffe core is going to be integrated with their products (antivirus/rootkit built into your bios anyone?)

    3 expect to see most of the commercial applications to disappear. They’re obviously not interested in hocking mcaffe av.

    so what does that leave us with? It means intel just bought a pre-coded heuristic av engine and they are now free to modify and use it however the hell they want.

    that’s the bigger picture. Stop focusing on the name mcaffe and start looking at what INTEL can do to mcaffe.

  • http://renew-antivirus.com Antivirus

    Using Intel’s financial backing McAfee should now be able to step up its R & D and improve security features on its software thus re-establish itself among the best anti virus software with the like of Kaspersky, ESET, and Symantec. Beside that Intel’s brand domination can also help McAfee in terms of distribution by providing free OEM software that comes with a purchase of computers that using Intel microprocessors.

  • http://c3dude.wordpress.com c3dude

    @Dara: man would i love to see an AV scan report on your system. I can see it now. Data being uploaded to a remote site. Taken a look at netstat lately? Oh and fyi, firewalls only protect against threats coming IN and generally ignore threats going OUT.

  • http://www.webhostinglogic.com Hippy Hop

    Am I seeing a motherboard stuff with an anti-virus software in the future? That will be good for at pc buyers but definitely not for other anti-virus software companies. With the amount of motherboards coming from Intel, they may lose sales in a jiffy.

  • Clovis

    An interesting strategy: buy up a product that does nothing else but makes your PC run at 30% of its usual speed, develop faster CPUs to make up for the slowdown, force people to upgrade to get an acceptable level of performance. Repeat.

  • Damien

    Same thing at all the places running this story for the comment section. All the focus is on the retail software fumble, I mean bundle.

    McAfee makes a heck of a lot more than the OEM junkware that’s bundled on new PCs.

    Host DLP, Network DLP, Host IPS, Network IPS, disk encryption, app whitelisting, corporate anti-virus that’s leagues ahead of the retail crap, & more.

    Seriously, do people not think for themselves anymore & just jump on the nearest gripe fest?

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