http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site ... ewsLang=en

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... buy-mcafee

For 7.68 billion dollars.

The who in the what now?

What is the benefit for Intel? It is not a natural fit. Unless they want the security skills.

Their reasons are below.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/360448/inte ... -7-billion

I can see that. Though couldn't they have licensed the technology for a lot less?

They'd have to license it on a 'per device' basis. if you make several million widgets a year, that can mount up.

Jon

On a per device basis yes it would be cheaper to buy the company. I just think that unless they might have problems from Norton who might object. Though I can see Microsoft liking this. It might improve security without them getting blamed for the lags. McAfee is not the fastest AV program out there and I have seen it bring machines to a crawl.

I've a sneaking suspicion it brings the PS3 browser (and maybe the entire system when in use) to a crawl sometimes...

Couldn't they have picked a company that makes better software?

So when are AMD buying out Symantec/Sophos?

Symantec are on a major buying spree themselves at the moment, I doublt they'll be for sale any time soon.

AMD can't afford to buy anything more at the moment. Buying ATi almost crippled them.
They should spend more money on developing their hardware to be competitive rather than copying intel.

This smells awfully like a all-in-one exercise to me - buy a security company, tweak the software to run best on your hardware then sell the thing as part of a package for datacentres etc.


Exactly right.

Lack of focus is what's doing for them at the mo IMO. They seem to be trying to compete with Intel in every sector instead of concentrating on one or two. They really need to learn the art of picking their battles - choose two or three markets and get them nailed instead of being also-rans in everything.

And they also need to up the game where their kit is concerned. I may be talking out of my ar*e but it seems obvious to me that they need to ditch the willy-waving arms-race and aim straight for the package / ecosystem model.

In most scenarios I've seen, the kit doesn't need to be the absolute dog's wotsits but it does need to be absolutely bulletproof - capital cost and headline speed is usually not nearly as important as good old-fashioned, unglamorous reliability. I've found that a lot of their individual components are really rather good but that the package as a whole just doesn't hang together very well. The number of times I've had to fix/fettle a highly-strung AMD so-called system where the Intel would just work. No vendor is going to use kit where one of the maintenance procedures is to call out "I need an old priest and a young priest!"

Where I think they should concentrate is:

• Stability
• TDP - come on guys, it's supposed to be a CPU not a heater
• Instructions per clock - they had Intel beat with this a few years back but now they're the whipping boys
• Chipset quality/stability - especially where wireless is concerned
• Drivers - because they're sh!te

If they could bring together a reliably stable, cool, fast-enough, lower-power CPU & on-board graphics/wireless with really nice open multi-platform drivers that can "out-reliable" Intel then even if they're not as fast I think they might do a lot better.

It'll probably end up in set-top boxes & smartphones at first.

Any way in a recent overhead conversation it could have just been a mistake.

Intel CEO: “We need antivirus, can someone buy me McAfee?”
Employee: [Few hours later] “Done.”
Intel CEO: “Great, which version?”
Employee: “Version … ?”

I wonder if it is used in phones there will be much of a performance issue?

What do you mean?

As it'll be hardware based and not software I'd say there wouldn't be a massive performance hit.