Intel may well too, when it came to plot the deal in the first place, had taken a look at which direction its processor business was set to go, as well as the rest of its hardware concerns. And while there's a boom in mobile devices that's set to continue, the desktop and laptop market is long past saturation point. Thus, while the main Intel business has been steady, and future growth has a ceiling on it, it's clearly keen to diversify its business, and to shore it up for generations to come.
A trouble-free purchase?
One of the appeals to Intel must also have been the fact that it's unlikely to have to fight too hard for regulatory approval on a deal like this. The bigger the firm, the harder a big acquisition is to get through the necessary legislature checking procedures, and as such, Intel wouldn't have wanted to find itself in the position Google did with Yahoo, when a tie-up of sorts was ultimately kyboshed when objections were raised (whether Microsoft would have been able to buy Yahoo was never ultimately tested, too).
While Intel has interests in the software market already the firm, after all, makes the point that it's picked up firms such as Wind River and Havok in recent times it's far from a dominant player. As such, the purchase of McAfee is the kind of deal that simply stands a good chance of being done, without having to jump through an abnormal number of hoops.
