Should Intel have bought Wave instead?
Posted by Ken Y-N on August 31st, 2010 at 04:42pm
David Lacey’s IT Security Blog examined the Intel buy-out of McAfee in detail, but he doesn’t see the sense in it. He paraphrases Intel’s statements on the buy-out with this:
In fact the real motivation behind the deal is an initiative to embed more security in hardware. Intel confidently believes that McAfee’s security technology will help create "hardware-enhanced security."
Given that Intel already have their TXT technology and implement DRTM, I cannot see this one myself. However, thinking a bit more, Intel are trying to get into the mobile and embedded world, and there not just a hardware root of trust is needed, but also runtime protection – I wonder if that’s what Intel see, McAfee providing software and firmware to make jailbreaking difficult or impossible?
Finally, David Lacey makes this suggestion:
So hardware security is certainly coming our way, though it might not take the form initially suggested by an Intel/McAfee merger. In fact, a smarter and cheaper option for a chip manufacturer might be to buy Wave Systems, a security vendor specializing in hardware based trusted computing solutions.
I’d describe Wave as "specialising in software for managing hardware-based trusted computing", but it’s a good point that Wave Systems would make a sensible investment for a chip manufacturer.
1 Comment for Should Intel have bought Wave instead?
1. Whit | September 27th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
From a bottom line perspective McAfee allows Intel to increase their margins and expand into a faster growing business with a little scale. Wave Systems revenue is currently only at ~30M, which leaves one to wonder if Intel could not just as easily develop a similar solution in-house (especially with McAfee engineers) to create a more tailored solution.
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