McAfee Buys Foundstone

McAfee just announced they bought Foundstone "for $86 million in cash, less various adjustments." The consultant core comprised of my former colleagues "will become part of the McAfee Expert Services team." I spoke with one of them and he doesn't foresee any major changes on the consulting side. He expects to continue doing assessments and other security work.

Given the price McAfee paid, McAfee primarily bought Foundstone for its technology and says it "is committed to supporting Foundstone customers and the continued development of the Foundstone technology. Once the transaction closes the company will begin to sell the Foundstone line of products including Foundstone Enterprise, Foundstone FS1000 appliance, Foundstone On-demand Service and Foundstone Professional TL." McAfee expects the transaction to close in the next 60 days.

This acquisition follows McAfee's sale of Network General (famous for its Sniffer) to Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group for $275 million in cash, "subject to working capital adjustment." McAfee is the former Network Associates; the name change was part of the sale of Sniffer. McAfee trades as MFE and was up over 3% today, exceeding the NASDAQ's gain of nearly 1.5%.

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