McAfee buys Secure Computing for £258 million

McAfee has announced that it is buying rival Secure Computing, a move that will create one of the biggest network security vendors in the market.

The two companies have claimed that the merger was driven by customers demanding complete solutions rather than a mass of point products from multiple vendors.

With the acquisition of Secure Computing, McAfee said that it will be able to offer the industry's most complete network security product line. Secure Computing's brand will eventually disappear from its products, to be replaced with the McAfee brand name.

McAfee claimed it would be the only company to offer firewalls, IPS, web security technologies, email security, network access control, and data protection as part of its portfolio.

Atri Chatterjee, a senior vice president at Secure Computing said: "Together we will have a range and reach that Secure on its own did not have. The McAfee brand is also synonymous with security while we were not so strong."

Chatterjee said that although Secure Computing took time in making its decision, the fact that the agreement was made meant that the all of the main issues were accounted for with lots of positives to go forward.

"The benefits far outweigh any concerns," he said. "We've got largely complimentary products which do not compete with each other"

Vimal Solanki, vice president of worldwide solutions at McAfee, said that the number of security vendors in the market now was becoming unmanageable. The current and future trend was now for customers to buy larger combined solutions from a more select band of vendors.

The merger will see McAfee acquire Secure Computing for a total of approximately $465 million (258 million).