Intel is dumping the Mcafee name in its top security product, CEO Brian Krzanich said at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, and will replace it with the name "Intel Security."
According to McAfee A/NZ managing director Keith Buckley, the name change reflects the value of the Intel brand and its attributes. "It also signals Intel's desire to become the definitive leader in security," he said. "While the McAfee name has been strongly associated with anti-virus protection, the security category and the company's portfolio is much broader, and the new name reflects that. By the end of this decade, Intel aims to provide ubiquitous security and identity protection for individuals and businesses on all computing devices."
The announcement was a welcome news for John McAfee, the founder of the eponymous security software company that Intel Corp bought for $7.7 billion in August 2010. McAfee said he is glad that Intel has finally decided to drop his name from its products. "I've been begging them to drop the brand or fix the product," he said. "My elation at Intel's decision is beyond words."
The decision to rebrand incidentally came after McAfee's constant criticism of the antivirus software that carried his name. On Tuesday, he said that he's tired of receiving complaints about the security software being "a complete CPU hog that ignores what the user wants to do." He has also released a profanity-laced video in June last year that mocked the quality of the software he created. "Everyone thinks I've written the worst software in the world. But I've had nothing to do with that company for 20 years," McAfee has said.
Intel repeatedly said that the attacks on the quality of its software have no merits. "Everybody realized the man was trying to get a laugh or make a joke. It is far from something that most buyers took seriously," Intel's Chief Technology Officer Michael Fey said. "We didn't really feel much pressure." Fey, however, said that it would be a relief to finally be able to ignore McAfee's antics once Intel stopped using his name.
