McAfee spin-off closes, company touts focus, independence
Cybersecurity company McAfee is independent once again and is hoping that focus will keep it ahead of emerging threats. McAfee will also have the capital to acquire other cybersecurity players.
On Tuesday, McAfee was spun out from Intel in a deal with TPG. TPG owns 51 percent of McAfee and Intel retains 49 percent. With the transaction, McAfee becomes one of the larger pure-play cybersecurity firms along with the likes of Symantec.
McAfee CTO Steve Grobman said the company will be more agile going forward. "The product strategy doesn't change, but we will be more agile and have the ability to execute faster from organic development. The way you run a semiconductor company is different than what's needed in cybersecurity," said Grobman.
Now the company wasn't hurting as part of Intel, but the core focus of McAfee's old owner was multi-year product cycles. McAfee, which will continue to be led by CEO Chris Young and most of the current executive team, will have to adapt to ransomware hitting larger companies, the weaponization of data and Internet of things attacks.
"There are a lot of changes in a lot of areas," said Grobman.
McAfee's goal is to work well with the broader security community because no one technology can do it all. McAfee will pivot to cloud services and build out its platform.