111–120 of 130 posts
Struck me a bit like when Ebay bought Skype. I had to really strain my brain to come up with a way that deal made sense.
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We're talking about $7.7 billion . I'm not sure it's quite as rosy a picture as you paint. I'm not that familiar with McAfee's annual profits, but even if they make $500 million a year, we can value the talent they cherry-pick at an absurdly high value of $1 billion, and it would still take Intel well over 10 years to recoup the investment, assuming stable revenue streams.
They would be ecstatic with that kind of return. Without growth and still making a hefty return. McAfee has ~$2b in revenue but an operating income of "just" $221m.
Why would they do this? It seemed obvious to me than in 5-10 years Antivirus software would be obsolete and unnecessary. I hear people every day recommending Windows 7 users get Microsoft Security Essentials and nothing else. And personally I run Ubuntu, so I haven't thought about antivirus software in years... This seems like a very odd decision to me. Intel, a world leader in processor design, does not need to get…
I work at a small antivirus company. I'd be interested in knowing how helping people whose computers are infected get them uninfected is a "sleazy business".
To most people, computer security is a mystery box inhabited by criminals who try and break in, and Mafia-like organizations who offer protection for a fee.
Came over to HN for answers to this WTF. But even here we have none. AV is snake oil. What do Intel have in mind?
Surely the issue isn't calling AV snake oil. Really. In this audience?
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Not necessarily - I think it has the potential to be a very good move for Intel. I thought about my last post more, and I can think of a few applications where it could give Intel some huge advantages. Something that came to mind: We all agree that AV software eats CPU cycles. What's to say Intel can't just start putting custom hardware that is designed solely to offload signature checking onto a separate chip? With…
No thank you! AV software is not security, it's a stopgap measure for when you have to "do something" but are too lazy to implement real security measures. And McAfee is one of the lowest quality AV vendors out there (remember when they pushed out a definition update that made XP instances unbootable? that costs a lot of people a lot of headache, and millions of dollars).
Thats one deep rabbit hole.
Why would they do this? It seemed obvious to me than in 5-10 years Antivirus software would be obsolete and unnecessary. I hear people every day recommending Windows 7 users get Microsoft Security Essentials and nothing else. And personally I run Ubuntu, so I haven't thought about antivirus software in years... This seems like a very odd decision to me. Intel, a world leader in processor design, does not need to get…
I'm definitely biased as a MS employee, but I can't underscore enough MSE as an Antivirus solution - it's the least annoying AV on the market and has the least perf impact on your system. Literally, you install it and it only bothers you when it absolutely has to.
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I'm definitely biased as a MS employee, but I can't underscore enough MSE as an Antivirus solution - it's the least annoying AV on the market and has the least perf impact on your system. Literally, you install it and it only bothers you when it absolutely has to.
can you convince my workplace to dump Symantec and start using MSE?
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How about paying dividends?
I think there's a bit of an agency problem on that one. Paying large dividends to return cash is sometimes a good choice for investors, but some executives, especially in tech, see it as some kind of failure: you're doing the opposite of an IPO, giving money back because you admit you don't know what to do with it! A bold new move is more interesting from an empire-building point of view.