McAfee channel welcomes Intel deal

Tina Tsoukatos: Bringing Intel and McAfee together cannot be a bad thing

McAfee partners were caught cold by Intel’s takeover of the security vendor but most believe the union could benefit them.

The chip giant hopes to complete the $7.68bn (£4.95bn) deal before the end of the year, after which it will run McAfee as a separate unit. It has pledged to maintain all McAfee’s current product lines but also plans to develop an all-new “enhanced” category of combined hardware and software products.

McAfee’s top Elite partners gave the deal a tentative thumbs up.

The rumour mill had linked McAfee to a deal with HP but Paul Spencer, director at Elite partner Axial Sys­tems, argued that McAfee VARs would be safer under the Intel umbrella.

“I would have been more concerned if McAfee had gone to HP,” he said. “HP has a big presence in the software sector and that would have created more of a challenge for existing McAfee partners. With Intel, I can’t see a complete integration happening.”

Charles Barratt, business development director of Elite partner Dataplex, hoped the merger would lead to a three-way partnership between McAfee, Intel and Citrix around virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

“McAfee made a big move with Citrix earlier this year around VDI,” he said. “There is possibly some harmony there if Intel integrates McAfee into its chipset – it would simplify the VDI architecture security model."

But Barratt described the move as a "bolt from the blue": "We knew McAfee was a prime acquisition target but no-one was expecting Intel to be the one who bought it."

Tina Tsoukatos, managing director at Elite partner Business Management Serv­ices, said: “We deal exclusively with the NHS, and Intel and McAfee are two massive brands within the NHS. Bringing them together cannot be a bad thing.”

Tony Harbon, owner of Elite partner Clearview Systems, also backed the deal despite admitting it came as a surprise.

“The prospect of a combination of the technical quality of McAfee’s extended product portfolio and Intel’s proven expertise in marketing is a very attractive one for us,” he said.