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McAfee S-1

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Re: McAfee S-1

#31

Post by nevi-me »

jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

My work company (global company with offices in every region) uses them. An oldish version of the thing, likely mandated by head office in the US (I'm in Africa).

The antivirus routinely uses 100% of the CPU for hours in a day. Our machines are so locked down with other products, one would wonder if the McAfee stuff is even useful.

I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work. A few of us who question IT practises are convinced that there must be something shady going on, as there are many better alternative. Heck, the default Microsoft option is good enough these days.

Re: McAfee S-1

#32

Post by judge2020 »

jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

John McAfee is probably too far removed for investors to be the slightest bit concerned, outside of PR issues it might cause.

https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/

https://www.cnet.com/news/john-mcafee-released-from-confinem...

https://decrypt.co/27447/john-mcafee-virtual-blockchain-talk

Re: McAfee S-1

#33

Post by kibibyte »

nevi-me wrote: post #31
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

My work company (global company with offices in every region) uses them. An oldish version of the thing, likely mandated by head office in the US (I'm in Africa). The antivirus routinely uses 100% of the CPU for hours in a day. Our machines are so locked down with other products, one would wonder if the McAfee stuff is even useful. I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work. A few of us who question IT practises…

Silly compliance checkbox perhaps? I'm vaguely aware that certain PCI standards require organizations to install anti-virus software with specific requirements.

Re: McAfee S-1

#34

Post by judge2020 »

abacadaba wrote: post #25
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

My mom just bought a laptop, it came with McAffee. All the Windows laptops at work still run McAffee. Presumably as means to decrease productivity as much as possible, or I guess it must check some box somewhere, got me.

Best Buy and similar retailers bundle AV with the computer, and IIRC it's often impossible to not have it pre-installed (since Windows installs it at the OEM's request). The only way around this is using recovery media (bootable usb/cd) and NOT the "reset to factory" setting in Windows 10's recovery settings.

Re: McAfee S-1

#35

Post by tehlike »

awalton wrote: post #13
jameslk wrote: post #5

I guess it begs to be asked: why has McAfee decided to IPO now as opposed to any other time in the past few decades?

> why has McAfee decided to IPO now as opposed to any other time in the past few decades All of the tech companies see where the economy is going, and they all know it's time to bunker down. Going public is a good way to raise a nice burst of cash they can sit on to get through the really bad times ahead, especially while the market is still hot enough to raise said money.

As long as fed prints money...

Re: McAfee S-1

#36

Post by jcrawfordor »

jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

McAfee has significant market share in enterprise, where they've built a product that isn't necessarily good but largely meets compliance and management requirements more easily and more inexpensively than the built-in Windows features. What I mean here are remote management and monitoring features, across AV, host firewall, host IDS, DLP, SIEM, etc.

I don't mean to defend McAfee as their products are, across the board, pretty terrible. But I think most of their revenue comes from a market that Microsoft has, so far, largely chosen not to take on: enterprise security departments with significant remote management and compliance requirements. You can only approach what McAfee provides with Microsoft products, and you'd need AD, SCCM and the whole nine yards (probably Azure AD and InTune these days).

McAfee's major competition in this area is Symantec with Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP). There aren't a lot of other vendors with an all-in-one solution.

Consider, for example, that McAfee holds the contract with the Department of Defense for HBSS which is McAfee's endpoint solution with custom tweaks for DoD requirements.

Re: McAfee S-1

#37

Post by a5withtrrs »

I work in security and let me explain why McAfee products are so commonplace in corporate environments, even when there are vastly better alternatives out there.

You want an AV product? Done You want a firewall product? Done You want central management? Done You want SIEM? Done etc etc

Are any of their products amazing compared to the alternatives? No! Do they integrate seamlessly with each other? No! Are they cheaper than alternatives? Probably not!

But.

They provide a solution for every checkbox. And it's easy to convince management and auditors that you have done 'the right thing' by using a well known brand. And this in turn gets pass marks from the auditors.

A specific note about integration between products, McAfee has a history of buying good security software companies and basically destroying them. The integrations usually 'barely work' and after enough people complain and the original core devs have packed up and left, they basically scuttle the product.

Remember when 'Foundstone' was a vulnerability scanner that was an actual alternative to Nessus and not the consulting arm of McAfee? I do and I'm still sad they gutted it.

Re: McAfee S-1

#38

Post by irjustin »

nevi-me wrote: post #31
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

My work company (global company with offices in every region) uses them. An oldish version of the thing, likely mandated by head office in the US (I'm in Africa). The antivirus routinely uses 100% of the CPU for hours in a day. Our machines are so locked down with other products, one would wonder if the McAfee stuff is even useful. I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work. A few of us who question IT practises…

> I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work.

This seems unlikely, but on the off chance - ear plugs or concert ear plugs[0]? Concert earplugs ideally attenuate without changing the sound (not realistic, i know). Or a really good set of active noise cancelling headphones, in-ear monitors?

I do question the laptop fans being the root cause of tinnitus since there'd have to be so so many... are you in a server room of laptops running at full strength?

Regardless, protect your hearing!

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-earplugs-for...

Re: McAfee S-1

#39

Post by kspacewalk2 »

jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

>Their original founder is outspoken against them

Given the... ahem... curious life journey[0] of said founder, I think that takes away approximately zero credibility from the company he left in 1994.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues

Re: McAfee S-1

#40

Post by calvano915 »

judge2020 wrote: post #34
abacadaba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom just bought a laptop, it came with McAffee. All the Windows laptops at work still run McAffee. Presumably as means to decrease productivity as much as possible, or I guess it must check some box somewhere, got me.

Best Buy and similar retailers bundle AV with the computer, and IIRC it's often impossible to not have it pre-installed (since Windows installs it at the OEM's request). The only way around this is using recovery media (bootable usb/cd) and NOT the "reset to factory" setting in Windows 10's recovery settings.

For a while now, Windows 10 has been able to reset to factory and remove all bundled apps via the Fresh Start reset option (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026602/windows-10-...).

I've never tested to verify how well it works, and I don't think it prevents apps that Microsoft wants to include like Candy Crush.

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