EU raises concern over Intel's large bid for McAfee

EU officials have raised concern over Intel's $7.68 billion bid for security software firm McAfee, which could in turn lead to a delay in closing the transaction.

Anti-trust regulators in the European Union have expressed preliminary concerns, says the WSJ, which may lead to an extended examination into the proposed deal.

Of focus is "Intel's stated desire to incorporate security features into its widely used microprocessor chips."

EU regulators say that fact may give McAfee an unfair advantage over other security rivals, like Norton.

Intel is the clear leader in the microprocessor market.

So far, the EU has only sent out preliminary questionnaires to other security-software firms asking if Intel could "embed security functions into its chips and whether any of them could be reserved to work only with McAfee software."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 20 Dec 2010 2:17

KillerBug

Even if they do have an unfair advantage in terms of resources available, they will still be slower and less accurate than the free alternatives.

20.12.2010 02:40 #1

attar

The EU should perhaps turn it's attention back to micromanaging the total cockup they have made of their financial system - then, if they ever manage to dig themselves out without bankrupting the working class of Germany, they can exercise their Ministry on free enterprise.

20.12.2010 05:37 #2

Interestx

attar

It's not a simple as that.
Maybe you just missed what has been happening in the financial world since 2007/8?

We can all do without these super-sized over-dominating companies.

Too big to fail ought to = too big to bail.
Making sure companies cannot grow to unmanageable sizes is a step towards that.

The EU's current financial problems are dwarfed by the scale of losses the international financial sector brought us all.

In fact it is the outrageous hypocrisy at the root of all of this stuff.
Taxpayers (ie the Govs) all over the world have had to take on huge debt - or risk a general financial collapse - to bail out that very financial sector which is now criticising the size of the Gov's debt!
The budget deficits our Govs now have is precisely because of the unbelievable risks that financial sector took and which, now things have gone bad, has seen Gov income fall substantially.

The fact that some EU govs (like Greece and Portugal and Spain) traditionally borrowed over the short-term has led to them being heavily exposed to the markets upon renewwal (the self same markets who created all this 'worry' about debt etc etc).
Greece for instance borrows over 2 or 3yrs generally compared to the UK which borrows over 13yr periods.

21.12.2010 12:54 #3

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