McAfee is once again its own entity. The security company has been spun out of Intel, and will be operating independently from now on. Intel will retain a majority 49 percent share in McAfee; while asset management firm TPG will own 51 percent of the new company..
Originally founded by John McAfee, the company was bought by Intel in 2010. As part of Intel, the company as known as Intel Security and largely focused securing chips.
The breakup between Intel and McAfee doesn’t really come as a surprise. Intel has been consolidating its operations over the last couple of years. There have been big changes from the microprocessor maker who has been working on cutting costs and lengthening the development process. We wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the cost cutting measures.
For the most part, McAfee as an independent company is an interesting prospect. It was once one of the best regarded anti-virus providers; back in the day when it was still called an anti-virus.
McAfee itself still services two thirds of the world’s top 2,000 companies; which means that it’s not in danger of losing money any time soon. Going solo means that the company will have more freedom to work on solutions and new products.
Hopefully this means a return to the days when we wouldn’t automatically uninstall McAfee from our computers.
[Source: Business Wire]
