It's a 'Wait-&-Watch' for Indian CIOs on Intel's McAfee Acquisition

Intel has sent the residents of Silicon Valley into an absurd frenzy with their shocking announcements yesterday to buy McAfee. The deal, valued at Rs.35,674 crore, is apparently three times overvalued as industry experts are seeing it, and has stupefied everyone in the community from CIOs to security vendors and analysts.

As we step into an age of increasing security consciousness, this deal may have a significant impact in shaping the landscape. The implications of the deal could be plentiful and difficult to speculate given that both companies have remained tight-lipped about their future plans.

The big debate raging in the CIOsphere today is “Does this mean now the antivirus and anti-malware will now be decided at the firmware level and will it start coming as an Intel in-build?“ For many Indian CIOs it could mean cheaper and better secured systems integrated with a lot of products that Intel already has.

According to Ravinder Jain, CIO Aircel, the deal heralds a new age of security embedded solutions.  He says, “Security is a big concern everywhere especially in telecom industry where more and more network elements are getting IP based. With 3G coming in, security will be the most talked topic among telecom professionals. With Intel embracing cyber security giant McAfee, we can expect more integrated security solutions with the chipset, which obviously would go beyond PCs.

RIS Sidhu, chief general manager, PNB, echoes Jain’s views. According to him, “Any consolidation is good because it reduces the number of vendors. As technology usage widens, lack of security becomes the single biggest threat. It makes sense for hardware vendors to integrate security services within and come as a package.”

Read McAfee Rivals Respond to Intel Acquisition

The deal signifies an increasing trend wherein IT majors are exploring possible synergies with security companies such as the IBM takeover of ISS and Guardium, or even the recent HP- Fortify Software acquisition. It may appear that Intel has made a strategic decision to make security a core part of its offering, since mobile devices have become a more important part of the IT infrastructure.

For  Navin Chaddha, CIO, Vodafone, the deal provides  a new perspective about securing chips in mobile devices and embedded systems like ATMs and kiosks. He says, "A better way of detecting and preventing malicious code / malware is to perform detection at the hardware level and from that perspective this merger looks promising."

However, not all CIOs share the optimism.  For Sanjay Belsare, head-IT infrastructure, Kotak Mahindra Bank the move is baffling. “Intel and McAfee operate in completely different businesses. In the past, Intel’s acquisitions have never been integrated into their products, and I don’t see it happening this time. We need to wait and watch what Intel’s game-plan is.”

Indeed, Intel’s history with software acquisitions haven’t been a very successful one, points out Srinivas Kishan Anapu, VP (enterprise IS), Mahindra Satyam. Anapu candidly states, “I was surprised with the announcement last evening, because Intel never enters a market which it cannot excel in. And in my opinion, McAfee isn’t that great a product. They have quite a low market share too. My guess is Intel’s trying to diversify. “

CIOs are divided as to what this big move will mean to the industry. Some feel that Intel is moving into application and handheld space. But rest assured everyone’s keeping their ears wide open.

Your move, Intel.