EU concerns could delay Intel’s McAfee acquisition

by Pete Mason on 20 December 2010, 13:30

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), European Commission, McAfee (NASDAQ:INTC)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa3no

Add to My Vault: x

Although everything seemed to be going smoothly for Intel following the announcement that it would be buying security-expert McAfee, the latest rumours suggest that the deal might have hit a bit of a roadblock.

Nothing is official yet, but the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) claims that the European Union's antitrust regulators have privately expressed concerns during the preliminary review of the deal. If anything comes of these concerns, a full investigation could be launched, bringing the acquisition to a grinding halt.

Apparently the major issue involves the possibility of CPUs with embedded virus protection. Given Intel's dominance of the microprocessor market, other firms in the security market could be effectively prevented from providing a competing solution. There's also the possibility that McAfee software could be given an architectural advantage, allowing it to offer far superior performance to competing solutions on Intel hardware.

According to the source, the Commission has sent multiple questionnaires to rival security companies to gather opinions on the deal. It then has until January 12 to decide whether or not a full investigation will be necessary.

Intel has largely denied to comment, instead referring to a statement (PDF) from Vice President of Investor Relations Kevin Sellers. The note points out that "all required pre-close regulatory filings around the world have been made and the matter is now under review in those respective jurisdictions. We expect that the deal will close some time in the first half of 2011".

On top of delaying the process, an investigation by the Commission could potentially block the deal all together. However, it's much more likely that the regulators would impose conditions or changes that would aim to protect the open market in the EU while allowing the deal to go ahead.



HEXUS Forums :: 3 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Hands up, who uses Mcaffee?
Hands up, who wants the CPU in their PC to be doing stuff you havent asked it to?
If they go ahead with embedded CPU virus protection will they bother with the Mac varients?

McAfee used to be OK until they followed Symantec into the bloatware market, I just stick to free virus/spyware scanners.
'[GSV
Trig;2021358']Hands up, who uses Mcaffee?
I use McAfee - to be honest it's never bothered me that much, apart from once when it decided that it couldn't update itself (easily sorted by following something on the McAfee KB)
'[GSV
Trig;2021358']Hands up, who wants the CPU in their PC to be doing stuff you havent asked it to?
Erm, you do actually run an operating system on your PC don't you? In which case you can pretty much guarantee that it'll be doing stuff you haven't asked it to do fairly regularly. Even more so if you're running Windows. And especially if you've got something from Apple or Adobe installed.

I deal with McAfee at work too, and it's okay in my experience - certainly lightyears ahead of the abortion that Norton AV turned into. Had some bad experiences with AVG on Windows which put me off of the free stuff - although MS Security Essentials looks quite good. That said, AVG do a reasonably good scanner for Android phones (bought in from somewhere else).

One criticism I will level firmly at McAfee is that they're following Symantec (always a bad idea) and trying to do everything - e.g. online backup, whereas I'm sure most folks would just like a decent firewall and AV combo. Oh, and I'd really like to see some more informative feedback on the scans and firewall activity - too “black box” at the moment.