McAfee
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| McAfee, Inc. | |
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| Type | Public (NYSE: MFE) |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters |  Santa Clara, California, USA |
| Key people | John McAfee, founder David DeWalt, CEO |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Revenue | ▲ US$1.31 billion (2007) |
| Employees | ~3900 (2007) |
| Website | www.mcafee.com |
McAfee, Inc.(NYSE: MFE)is an antivirus software and computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It markets McAfee VirusScan and related security products and services, including the IntruShield, Entercept, and Foundstone brands.
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[edit] History
The company was founded in 1987 as McAfee Associates, named for its founder John McAfee. Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates and Network General. In 2004, a major restructuring occurred. In the spring, the company sold its Magic Solutions business to Remedy, a subsidiary of BMC Software. In the summer of 2004, the company sold the Sniffer Technologies business to a venture capital backed firm named 'Network General' - the same name as the original owner of Sniffer Technologies. Also, the company changed its name back to McAfee to reflect its focus on security-related technologies.
Among other companies bought and sold by McAfee (formerly known as Network Associates) is Trusted Information Systems, which developed the Firewall Toolkit, which was the free software foundation for the commercial Gauntlet Firewall, which was later sold by McAfee to Secure Computing Corporation. Network Associates, as a result of brief ownership of TIS Labs/NAI Labs/Network Associates Laboratories/McAfee Research, was highly influential in the world of Open Source software, as that organization produced portions of the Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin operating systems, and developed portions of the BIND name server software and SNMP version 3.
Leading up to the TIS Labs acquisition, McAfee had acquired Calgary, Alberta Canada-based FSA Corporation, which helped the company diversify its security offerings away from just client-based antivirus software by bringing on board its own network and desktop encryption technologies. The FSA team also oversaw the creation of a number of other technologies that were leading edge at the time, including firewall, file encryption, and public key infrastructure product lines. While those product lines had their own individual successes including PowerBroker, written by Dean Huxley and Dan Freedman and now sold by Symark Software), the growth of antivirus always outpaced the growth of the other security product lines. It is fair to say that the company remains best known for its antivirus and antispam product lines.
On June 9, 1998 Network Associates agreed to acquire Dr Solomon's Group P.L.C, the leading European manufacturer of Antivirus software, for $642 million in stock.
On April 2, 2003, McAfee acquired IntruVert Networks for $100 million. According to Network World, "IntruVert's technology focus is on intrusion-prevention, which entails not just detecting attacks, but blocking them. The IntruVert product line can be used as a passive intrusion-detection system, just watching and reporting, or it can be used in the intrusion-prevention mode of blocking a perceived attack."[1]
On April 5, 2006, McAfee bought out SiteAdvisor for a reputed $70 million[2] in competition with Symantec, a service that warns users if downloading software or filling out forms on a site may obtain malware or spam. In January 2006, McAfee agreed to pay a fine of US$50 million to the SEC for Accounting Fraud known as channel stuffing that served to inflate their revenue to their investors. (http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006-3.htm)
In October 2006 McAfee fired their President Kevin Weiss and their CEO George Samaneuk resigned under the cloud of a recent SEC investigation which also caused the departure of Kent Roberts, the General Counsel, earlier in the year. In late December 2006 both Weiss and Samaneuk had share option grant prices revised upwards by McAfee's board.
In January 2007 under pressure from ex-employees worldwide, several of which backed a class action in the US, McAfee agreed to honor share options granted but which are unable to be exercised due to the self-imposed blackout on employee options dealing.
On March 5, 2007 McAfee named Dave DeWalt chief executive officer and president. He has replaced interim CEO Dale Fuller. Fuller will remain on McAfee's Board. DeWalt is expected to be named to the board of McAfee.[3]
McAfee has developed a number of product packages for their customers, the most recent ones being for consumer McAfee Total Protection and for business McAfee Total Protection - SMB, McAfee Total Protection - SMB, Advanced, McAfee Total Protection - Enterprise and McAfee Total Protection - Enterprise - Advanced. McAfee Total Protection - Consumer combines a number of security tools and is meant to compete with bundled solutions such as Symantec's Norton 360 and Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare.
[edit] Company Profits and Expectations
McAfee, Inc. Reports Preliminary First Quarter Revenue of $314 million Company Delivers Consistency with Nine Consecutive Quarters of Record Revenues, Excluding Divested Businesses SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE) today announced preliminary unaudited results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007. These results are preliminary because, as previously announced, McAfee has determined that it will need to restate its historical financial statements to record additional non-cash charges associated with past stock option grants and to reflect the related tax impact for stock-based compensation expense over a 10-year period. McAfee believes this restatement is likely to result in aggregate non-cash charges in the range of $100 million to $150 million. In addition, McAfee expects the restatement to include other adjustments to certain balance sheet and income statement accounts that will affect its previously reported results. Excluding stock-based compensation, the Company expects that any adjustments in the income statement results will be principally timing-related. McAfee intends to file restated financial results and related periodic reports as soon as practicable.[4]
Fourth Quarter 2006 and Full Year Ended December 31, 2006
Preliminary un-audited results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2006, marking significant gains by the company. The company's balance, including cash, cash equivalents, and investments, totaled $1.24 billion. Fourth-quarter bookings grew to $388 million, an increase of 5 percent over the fourth quarter of 2005. An 18 percent gain in corporate revenue was attributed to sales improvements in the company’s network protection and management businesses. McAfee’s expectations in growth show no signs of slowing. In their financial outlook report, McAfee stated that they expect net revenue in the first quarter of 2007 of $280 million to $300 million. For the full year 2007, McAfee expects net revenue of $1.200 billion to $1.275 billion, including a full-year 2007 GAAP net income of $0.97 to $1.17 per share. Concerning this positive development Dale Fuller, interim president and chief executive officer of McAfee remarked, “I am pleased with the way that we finished the fourth quarter and closed out the full-year 2006."We achieved double-digit growth in revenues and non- GAAP earnings per share.” Fuller continued, "The need for McAfee's products has never been greater - security risk management is growing in its importance to individuals and businesses. McAfee, by making security its sole focus, has been able to respond with sophisticated, elegant, and easy-to-use security solutions that address today's threats and tomorrow's risks."[5]
[edit] Products
McAfee currently develops many security tools for the PC, both for corporate and home users. The list below isn't comprehensive. See the links further down for all products. A subset of McAfee's products include:
- McAfee VirusScan (antivirus, some antispyware components)
- McAfee Total Protection for Small Business (antivirus, antispyware, firewall)
- McAfee Personal Firewall Plus (firewall)
- McAfee GroupShield (antivirus for mail servers)
- McAfee Secure Content Management Appliances (Antivirus and Antispam Gateway Appliance)
- McAfee SpamKiller (antispam)
- McAfee Privacy Service (anti-abuse, plus Anti-phishing)
- McAfee AntiSpyware (full antispyware, plus Anti-phishing)
- McAfee QuickClean (secure shredder, file cleanup)
- McAfee SiteAdvisor (free) (alerts users when entering dangerous sites, basing on downloads, popups and number of e-mail received)
- McAfee SecurityCenter (free) (gateway to managing most McAfee services, as well as Windows updates management)
- McAfee LinuxShield (antivirus for enterprise editions of Red Hat and SUSE distributions.)
- McAfee Wireless Security protects wireless networks.
- McAfee IntruShield (Intrusion Prevention Appliance)
[edit] Naming rights
McAfee has had naming rights to the McAfee Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics baseball team in Oakland, California since 1997 when then-Network Associates acquired sponsorship to the venue formerly called the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. [2]
[edit] Controversy
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against McAfee for overstating their profits.[6]
- McAfee Auto Renewal Policy - McAfee Auto Renews subscriptions without customers consent and charges their credit cards without customers permission.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Network Associates to buy IntruVert for $100 million - Network World
- ^ McAfee sets e-commerce boost for SiteAdvisor - Network World
- ^ [1]
- ^ McAfee® - about - McAfee, Inc. Reports Preliminary First Quarter Revenue of $314 million
- ^ McAfee, Inc. - Investor Relations - Financial Release
- ^ Overstated Profits
[edit] External links
- Official site
- McAfee Total Protection - hosted by McAfee
- McAfee's Antivirus Products
- McAfee's Data Loss Prevention Products
- McAfee's Identity Theft Prevention Products
- McAfee Secure Internet Gateway
