Rumor: Intel is looking to sell its cyber security business

(Image source: Intel)

According to a report by The Financial Times, Intel is looking to divest itself of its Intel Security business division. The chipmaker is reportedly in talks with banks about the possibility of putting up the entire business unit for sale. This may potentially lead to the sale of its antivirus software solution McAfee, which was acquired in 2010 to the tune of US$7.7 billion. Intel has refused to comment on this development.

(Image source: Intel)

Intel attempted to integrate McAfee’s software capabilities with its hardware expertise by offering McAFee DEEPSafe, a hardware-assisted security solution that is supposed able to better protect computing devices as the solution functions outside the boundaries of the traditional operating system; however, this initiative failed to gain much traction. As observed by The Financial Times, there’s a surge of interest in investing in cyber security companies by private investors. This is due to increasing online threats faced by corporations, and the pressing need for them to protect their assets from cyber security threats.

In the wake of a depressed PC market, Intel has attempted to shore up its operations; most recently, it announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs from its global workforce. Also, Intel has decided to focus its data center and IoT businesses that are its key growth engines together with products like memory and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These business segments contributed US$2.2 billion in revenue for 2015, making up 40 percent of its total revenue. The chipmaker has also decided to pull out from the mobile chip market when news of its decision to cancel Broxton and SoFIA SoCs (systems on a chip) was leaked recently.

(Source: The Financial Times)