Intel is finally rebranding the McAfee as Intel Security, dropping the “McAfee” moniker. The chipset manufacturer bought McAfee, a renowned name in the field of information security in the year 2010. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, in addition to wearable technology and other improvements in the chipset, announced that the word “McAfee” is likely to be dropped.
Intel bought McAfee software in 2010 for over seven and a half billion dollars. But neither did Intel, nor the security company McAfee ever rename its brand, even though John McAfee, the original founder had left the company and sold all his remaining stakes over fifteen years ago.
Intel is planning to rename the brand and even provide some of its security features for free to all users to protect their mobile devices. But, the red logo of the company is likely to remain intact.
As expected, John McAfee in a statement to BBC, pronounced how happy he was with this change. He adds,
I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet. These are not my words, but the words of millions of irate users. My elation at Intel’s decision is beyond words.
John McAfee loves to get into controversy and can go to a great extent to show his disregards. Last year he starred in a YouTube video to teach people how to uninstall McAfee Anti Virus from their computers. Do note that the video may not be suitable for children!
Later that year, he announced that he is currently developing a new software which is supposedly, “Anti-NSA”, called D-Central.
John McAfee’s nuts… went off the deep end a long time ago. I met him in the ’70s at one of the West Coast Computer Faires. You could already see, even then, that he was right on the border of being nuts. There is, after all, a fine line between genius and insantiy…
…and there’s absolutely no question that he was, back then, true genius.
There is virtually no one who hasn’t heard of the “McAfee” brand as an anti-virus product. It has existed since the earliest days of MS-DOS and PC-DOS; I remember using it, and putting it on my clients’ machines; and I remember John McAfee being one of the foremost authorities on viruses; and I also remember when he answered his own phone and I could call him and consult with him about malware-related stuff. No one who has purchased a Windows machine from any of the big labels (Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.) in the past nearly 20 years didn’t have McAfee anti-virus bloatware pre-installed on it.
Imagine, then, just exactly how much John McAfee has screwed-up in recent years, and has so harmed his own name’s reputation, that Intel is willing to completely throw away the “McAfee” brand name for which I’ll bet no small part of that $7.5 billion paid. That’s really the story, here: how Intel decided that its 2010-acquired anti-virus products being in any way associated with the name “McAfee,” any longer, just isn’t worth it. Yikes!
Fortunately, for Intel, it’s “Intel” brand is even bigger; and so other than having wasted whatever part of the $7.5 billion that it paid for the McAfee company was intended to cover the cost of the brand name, Intel’s gonna’ be fine with its new “Intel Security” product.
__________________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.
Veritas nimium altercando amittitur.