Yesterday, Apple chipmaker Intel announced a surprising move: they are buying for security firm McAffee for $7.7 billion.
It’s a curious move, and Intel’s motivations for buying McAffee are murky at best. Since McAfee is mostly known for its PC software line-up, which is practically infamous amongst Windows users for being an expensive, system-intensive hog of an anti-virus suite, many are seeing this move as a bet by Intel on Windows.
That would seem to be a curiously short-sighted move on Intel’s part, though: clearly the future of computing is mobility. This prompts Gizmodo to speculate Intel’s real plan is to integrate McAffee’s virus-busting technology directly on silicon chips, to better accommodate a mobile and cloud-driven computing future.
If that supposition is true, McAffee might be coming in hardware form to a Mac near you someday. But that notion is problematic too: a hardware solution to virus-catching simply can’t respond as quickly and robustly to the constantly mutating and multiplying virus landscape as software can. And what does OS X or even iOS need a hardware anti-virus chip for anyway?
I’m going to posit a third guess, leaving out all the conspiracies: this is simply about one profitable company buying another profitable company they think they can make a lot of money from long term. And rake hand over fist in money they almost certainly will: McAffee’s presence in corporations, governments and enterprises alone guarantees a return on their investment. Even if Intel’s future plans are modestr, snapping up McAffee is probably going to be a very profitable move for them.
[image via Gizmodo]
