BRUSSELS – European Union regulators on Wednesday cleared Intel's takeover of McAfee after the chipmaker committed to allowing its products to also work with software from other computer security companies.
The fact that Intel could embed McAfee's security programs in its own chips had threatened to lock other players out of the market, the European Commission said.
Computer security has become a lucrative business in an age of computer viruses and other cyber malware.
Intel, whose computer chips are inside about 80 percent of the world's PCs and servers, promised to give rival security companies all the information necessary to use Intel's chips in the same way as McAfee.
On top of that, Intel committed to not actively impeding competitors' programs from running on its chips, or hampering the performance of McAfee programs on non-Intel devices, the Commission said.
"The commitments submitted by Intel strike the right balance, as they allow preserving both competition and the beneficial effects of the merger," the EU's Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement. "These changes will ensure that vigorous competition is maintained and that consumers get the best result in terms of price, choice and quality of the IT security products."
The $7.68 billion takeover of McAfee is the biggest deal in Intel's history and had already been cleared by U.S. regulators.
2011 - newzfor
No comments:
Post a Comment