McAfee--Not RSA--Hooks Up with EMC to Secure PCs Online
This item is a bit strange. McAfee, the world's second-largest IT security company behind RSA Security, said May 18 that it plans to partner with storage giant EMC to offer online PC backup services. This is odd for this reason: EMC already owns a security division (RSA, as a matter of fact). Why would it need to go outside its own firewall to obtain these services? EMC, the world's largest external-disk storage company, plans to offer consumers unlimited Web-based backup for personal computers using its own Decho division (formerly called Mozy). It will charge users about $5 per month ($50 to $60 a year) for this, McAfee Executive Vice President Todd Gebhart told analysts. So what's EMC's story? Well, RSA, which secures entire data centers and networks, apparently doesn't have a product that handles online storage for PCs. Who knew? |
Comments (2)
This is part of the overall convergence of storage infrastructure and security. Some of this convergence is from alliances (McAfee+EMC) and some results from mergers (Symantec&Veritas and EMC&RSA)
McAfee is trying to respond to Symantec's (category leading) online backup capability made possible from the acquisition of Veritas. Consumers, small enterprises, and large ones all seem to see a clear connection between backup and security.
Strange you should say McAfee is the second largest security company behind RSA. Symantec is twice larger than McAfee. Plus, EMC acquired RSA but that merger is not widely considered to result in a broad portfolio security play (like Symantec and of course McAfee.)
Posted by Kevin Rowney | May 20, 2009 12:24 PM
Thanks for your comment, Kevin. You are certainly correct that Symantec as a corporation ($12.45 billion market cap) is twice as large as McAfee ($5.99 billion). But about half of Symantec's business is the Veritas storage and data management business, while McAfee is purely security focused.
Thanks for the additional info on the alliance convergences.
/cp
Posted by Chris P | May 20, 2009 1:20 PM