Intel: Buying their way to Secure

The announcement yesterday that Intel was purchasing security software/hardware/services firm McAfee for $7.68 Billion dollars has certainly changed the security landscape. But was it a surprise? Dark Reading seems to think so: “…[this] took many in the security industry by surprise“.

I sincerely doubt that. In addition to the rumors of HP buyout for sometime (which Dark Reading mentions), there is a certain karmic reliability that ‘a company that lives by acquisition, will die by acquisition’ (pardon my paraphrasing of the Book of Matthew). McAfee’s acquisition list in the last two years included companies like MX Logic, and CEO David DeWalt claimed the company would continue to make 3-4 acquisitions per year for growth into the security sector.