Intel + McAfee: what does it mean?
Oracle buys Secerno. IBM buys Guardium. Now, Intel buys McAfee.
The lesson is simple: security has become a business process. In the past, the objective of security was all about keeping the bad guys out while letting the good guys in. However, with the advent of insiders and as external hacking’s focus shifted to data theft, the objective of security professionals changed dramatically. Data—and the transactions that moved data—meant security teams had to deploy security as a part of supply chains, online transactions and for online collaboration among customers, employees, partners and social networks.
Today, cyber security can't be separated from business operations. For this reason, how security teams must view and approach their roles has changed dramatically. For example, in the past a CIO’s role was laptop distribution. Today, CIOs build supply chains. In the past, CISOs distributed anti-virus and set up firewalls. Today, they must know where data resides, where it moves and how to protect it which requires a serious, comprehensive data security practice. This means security teams need to become business process experts to keep the bad guys disarmed while keeping the good guys productive.
With this is in mind, Intel's purchase makes a lot of sense. Welcome to the party.
Intel does MUCH more than just processors. Just have a look at their product list: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products.
Their product catalog looks like a phone book. Securing networks, mobile phone activity, etc... for both consumer and businesses makes a lot of sense for them.
Unfortunate, I still don't get it. I totally understand what you've just said, but it would have made sense if it was a Network Infrastructure or even Data Centre Solutions vendor which has purchased them. I mean someone from the likes of Cisco, HP, Dell, etc. But Inter is a chip manufacturer, they normally do not sell products to end users. The acquisition is like a nuts and bolts manufacturer acquiring a constructions or car manufacturer. It doesn't make any sense to me.
I am sure there is something in there that I don't get. However I hope Intel is not as foolish as IBM who acquired ISS just to do nothing with them, and they almost killed them now.