McAfee.
For IT folks, one could safely replace every reference of "Neumann" in the 1990's Seinfeld comedy series with "McAfee" and the sentiment would remain the same. McAfee is not a popular security product among those that have to work with it daily. Though McAfee's software is utilized in many organizations, there are more horror stories than glowing reviews. Who remembers the faulty signature file release of 2010 where the McAfee CEO finally apologized publicly over a corporate video? I was at MMS 2010 at the time and many of the conference attendees had to spend their first day of the event trying to remotely fix 1,000's of bricked PCs back at home. This wasn't the first time McAfee had released botched updates, but it is probably the most publicly recognized.
Granted, Symantec is not viewed as any better, but still…
At CES on Monday, Intel's CEO, Brian Krzanich, announced that the company would be eliminating the McAfee branding of the security product line and replacing it with a new Intel Security brand. Intel acquired McAfee for over $7.5 billion in 2010, but instead of getting better the software actually has gotten worse to the point of fading into nothingness, joining the ranks of companies like RealPlayer and AvantGo.
RELATED: Intel and McAfee Launch DeepSAFE Security Technology
John McAfee, the pot-smoking, delusional founder of the security business had this to say to BBC News:
"I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet. These are not my words, but the words of millions of irate users..."
The rebranding could take up to a year, but the original McAfee red shield will remain, hoping to retain familiarity. It'll be interesting to see if the software will improve being devoid of the McAfee name, of if the remaining red shield will end up being a fitting tombstone.
I'm interesting to hear how many organizations are still using McAfee? And, if so, how many are actually happy about it?
