Report: Intel to shed McAfee staff

Reuters claims chip giant is to lay off "a small percentage" of security vendor's 7,000-plus workforce

Intel is to get rid of "a small percentage" of McAfee's 7,100-strong workforce, according to a report from Reuters.

The article claims an Intel spokesperson confirmed yesterday that the job cuts will be taking place, but could not provide further detail.

Intel bought the security firm in a blockbuster $7.7bn (£4.9bn) acquisition last spring. The vendors released their first jointly developed product about a year ago and, earlier this year, McAfee told ChannelWeb that the union is starting to benefit its channel of security resellers.

The Reuters report suggests that security vendors are feeling the pinch in the wake of the consumer PC market's continued downturn. Two months ago client compute market figures released by Canalys revealed that Intel's share of the PC market sank below 70 per cent in 2013's second quarter.

Fellow analyst Gartner recently questioned whether or not it was possible for the UK PC market "to ever return to solid growth".