Intel buys McAfee: Will it dominate the Cloud?
August 25, 2010 by Steve HannafordPosted in: Dealers & Channel, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Chipmaker Intel just snapped up major security software company McAfee, in a $7.68 billion deal.
That price, which surprised some analysts, bears witness to the importance of internet security in the larger computer world. What most observers believe is that Intel plans to embed many security features into its industry-leading processors, making them even more of market dominator.
In the short term, Intel already serves McAfee’s customers (PC makers) and there may be some antitrust issues as it is in a position to oust McAfee rivals like Symantec from the PC market. But while Intel dominates desktop and notebook computing, it contends with a lot of competition in the burgeoning handheld market (phones, PDAs, and tablets).
Here, the real advantage for Intel may be in the cloud, according to a New York Times article.
For mobile devices, the security features, whether hardware or software, tend not to reside so much in the device as in the cloud services, the severs and storage that connect the devices to the real world. And, as the Times article points out, “those data-center ‘clouds’ are running mostly industry-standard servers, powered by Intel processors. So there may be plenty of runway for Intel to execute its security-baked-into-hardware strategy on computer servers.”
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