Will 2016 by the year that the McAfee brand will
disappear from the public consciousness, or as a SKU, anyway? If so, it will be the end of an era that
began with McAfee’s founding in 1987.
About McAfee
Wikipedia has published a history of McAfee. Some of the below has not made it into that history (or was edited out).
At one point in time, during its growth phase, McAfee actively
sold off firms that it did not see as being among the top three in their niche. One of their sales (when they had the Network
Associates name), was the data encryption company PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
which they had originally acquired in 1997, to some of the founders of PGP. This was probably a whoops. In 2010, Symantec
purchased this company, the same year Intel acquired McAfee.
To encourage use of their desktop product, McAfee
aggressively gave away trial versions (remember CD’s?) of their endpoint
product, causing some of their competitors to refer to the company as
“McAfree”.
In the late 1990's, Trend Micro sued McAfee (and ultimately
other, for patent infringement) "We are not just in it for the
royalty," said Trend Micro's general counsel Bob Lowe. "Our main goal
is having the products be prevented from being sold." Nonetheless, the suit ended with a
cross-licensing agreement.
The “rumor mill” had it that one McAfee executive used to
keep a firearm in his desk.
In April 2003, after purchasing Intrusion Prevention company
Intruvert for $100M, the company’s repositioned itself on its website as an
intrusion prevention company. In fact, Barron’s in 2005 referred to McAfee as a
leader in intrusion prevention
On January 4, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission
filed suit against McAfee for overstating its 1998–2000 net revenue by $622
million. Without admitting any wrongdoing, McAfee simultaneously settled the
complaint, and agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and rework its accounting
practices.
Several executives left McAfee in the mid 2000’s in part because
of an investigation related to back dating of options. The execs were exonerated. The CEO
resigned at this time, for other reasons, and, went outside the company for a
new CEO.
On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it would buy McAfee
for $48 a share in a deal valued at $7.68 billion. There was some push back from
the European Union as they felt this deal would give Intel an unfair advantage
in desktop security, but the deal did go through.
On January 6, 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced
during the Consumer Electronics Show the name change from McAfee Security to
Intel Security. He stated that the
McAfee red shield logo would remain and the firm would continue to operate as a
wholly owned Intel subsidiary.
On the consumer side over the years, McAfee has been battling Symantec on the paid front. Market share? Around 12th in the October OPSWAT market share report. Mixed results in AV-Comparatives testing. They haven't been tested by Virus Bulletin in several years.
Jumping Forward to 2015
October 28, 1915- Search Cloud Security - Intel Pulls Plug on McAfee SaaS Security Products
Intel Security will stop selling McAfee SaaS Endpoint and SaaS Email Protection
and Archiving. Although new sales will stop in 2016. Existing customers can
continue renewing their subscription and receiving support until Jan. 11, 2019,
Intel Security said in its notices. Depending on certain subscription types,
limited support will be available for some services until 2021.
October 29 - 2015 Channelnomics - McAfee Brand Will Stay
for Now
McAfee as a brand still holds a lot of equity for Intel
Security, Lisa Matherly, and Intel VP of worldwide partner programs, marketing
& operations, told Channelnomics at Intel Security's Focus 15 event in Las
Vegas.
"There is a lot of equity in the McAfee brand and there
is some association with security with the Intel brand, but not as strong as
the McAfee brand," Matherly pointed out. "So that's really what we're
trying to do - bridge that and introduce the Intel security brand, start
associating the security there, but also leverage what we have in the McAfee
brand for the product portfolio. She added that the future of the McAfee brand
is uncertain now and will be driven by the market.
November 5, 2015 - Intel Security Confirms Divestiture of
McAfee NGFW, Firewall Enterprise Businesses in Memo to Partners
In a memo to partners, Intel Security confirmed its divestiture of its McAfee Next-Generation Firewall and McAfee
Firewall Enterprise businesses to Raytheon/Websense
So, pieces are being sold. Other pieces are being end of lifed. Other pieces are being retained though the word "McAfee" appears to be going away.
Other Firms to the Rescue
Since these announcements, Mimecast and Sophos have leapt to the rescue,
offering special pricing for users of some McAfee products.
Mimecast - You need a new solution offering both similar
features and a smooth migration path – without worrying about a financial
burden.
Sophos Promo - We Can Help Today. McAfee retired its email security and archiving products,
and now you are scrambling to find an alternative. However, we have good news.
Sophos’ solutions will help you turn an annoying replacement project into an
upgrade opportunity. And we can do it right now.
Hold, hold onto those McAfee CD’s, tee shirts, and trade show
giveaways. It may be the end of an era but they may be worth something on eBay.
One question (beyond the scope of this piece), is whether
Intel should have even purchased McAfee in 2010 years ago? They are keeping some of the
components. At the time (and even currently) large companies are purchasing
jumping onto the security bandwagon to strengthen their security offerings or
get into the business.
Also beyond the scope of this piece is any discussion of
John McAfee, McAfee’s founder, who filed
to run for president in early September!
Another discussion - worthy of it's own post, will be the future of desktop/endpoint security since pundits' views on this cross the spectrum as to the solution's viability.
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