Despite some of the buzz in the blogosphere today (see links below),  Intel’s acquisition of McAfee makes sense.  I believe it’s premised on the need to provide security in the growing mobile space.  Intel has a chance to produce some differentiated technology for mobile and that will also flow into data centers.   This surprise acquisition also acknowledges that security is something enterprises expect at all levels of the software stack.  This also validates that security should no longer be viewed as “part” of an IT strategy.   It’s an essential ingredient to every part of the IT ecosystem.

The challenge is that pervasive security is hard.  You’ve got to have the chops to implement the right security policies for your organization. Let’s face it – cybercrime has advanced from being lone wolves and script kiddies to organized crime using military-grade techniques.  Enterprises need to be increasingly worried about their data.  To meet these threats, security must be pervasive throughout the enterprise, and Intel has taken the first step to embed security directly into hardware. Security also needs to be integrated in the operating system, the application and the cloud so that enterprises can log and correlate events to look for rogue activity from either internal employees or external threats.   This takes knowledge, and the right solution providers to help you navigate the complexities of this ever evolving risk landscape.  I’m sure we’ll see others with different takes on how to solve this but Intel has made a bold and interesting move.

Andrew Jaquith's Blog
Threatchaos.com
The Register
Securosis