Intel and McAfee love-in leaves rivals out in the cold

So Intel is to buy McAfee for $7.68bn (or £5bn in real money). Apart from a 'man that's a lot of money' reaction and 'what credit crunch?' it also makes me think 'if I was the competition, I'd be more than a little worried'.

I've worked for a number of security software companies (including Symantec and Trend Micro). It's become  a crowded market in recent years with a rash of new entrants as well as some open source alternatives. And while the need for the software is undeniable if you are on a PC or run any sort of company, protection has always come at a price.

Having a piece of software run processes in the background every minute of the day places a load on the PC. Now all the major vendors have got a hell of a lot better at minimising this and on most modern PCs its a more than acceptable trade-off. But...

From the BBC's report:

Through buying McAfee, a leading security technology firm, Intel intends to build security features into its microprocessors which go into products such as laptops and phones.

So what happens when you get the world's leading chip manufacturer engineering security features from its new acquisition right into the chips themselves? How much of a premium will customers pay for a machine with 'Intel security inside'? And what happens to the likes of AMD who are then inherently less secure? (Time to buy Trend maybe?)

The enterprise players (Symantec, CA, RSA) arguably have a little less to fear as security at this level is significantly more complex. But at the consumer end of the market things look decidedly more unstable. And when you combine this with a far more secure Windows 7 you can see why many in the market will be more than a little unsettled.

Interesting times indeed.