McAfee, Inc. - Security Software -  Category Directory

(408) 988-3832

3965 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95054
www.nai.com

Sales

$936 million

Business Description 

We are a leading supplier of computer security solutions designed to prevent intrusions on networks and protect computer systems from the next generation of blended attacks and threats. We offer two families of products, McAfee System Protection Solutions and McAfee Network Protection Solutions. Our computer security solutions are offered primarily to large enterprises, governments, small and medium-sized businesses and consumer users. We operate our business in five geographic regions: North America; Europe, Middle East and Africa, or EMEA; Japan; Asia-Pacific and Latin America. 

Our McAfee Protection-in-Depth Strategy is designed to provide a complete set of system and network protection solutions differentiated by intrusion prevention technology that can detect and block known and unknown attacks. To more effectively market our products in our various geographic sales regions, as more fully described below, we have combined complementary products into separate product groups as follows:

• McAfee System Protection Solutions, which delivers anti-virus and security products and services designed to protect systems such as desktops and servers and

• McAfee Network Protection Solutions, which offers products designed to maximize the performance and security of networks, including Sniffer Technologies network analysis and availability technologies, network intrusion prevention with McAfee IntruShield and InfiniStream Security Forensics.

The majority of our net revenue has historically been derived from our McAfee Security anti-virus products and our Sniffer Technologies network fault identification and application performance management products. In addition to these two flagship products, we have focused our efforts on building a full line of complementary network and system protection solutions. On the system protection side, we strengthened our anti-virus lineup by adding complementary products in the anti-spam and host intrusion prevention categories. On the network protection side, we built upon our Sniffer Technologies line by adding products in the network monitoring, network reporting, network application performance monitoring, network intrusion prevention and forensics categories. We continuously seek to expand our product lines.
 

McAfee System Protection Solutions

McAfee System Protection Solutions helps large enterprises, small/medium businesses, consumers, government agencies and educational organizations assure the availability and security of their desktops, application servers and web service engines. The McAfee System Protection Solutions portfolio features a range of products including anti-virus, managed services, McAfee SpamKiller anti-spam solutions, McAfee ThreatScan vulnerability assessment and McAfee Entercept for host-based intrusion prevention. Each is backed by the McAfee Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team, a leading threat research organization.

McAfee System Protection Solutions also includes McAfee Consumer Security, offering both traditional retail products and our on-line subscription services. Our consumer retail and on-line subscription applications allow users to protect their PCs from malicious code and other attacks, repair PCs from damage caused by viruses and block spam and other undesirable content. Our retail products are sold through retail outlets, including Best Buy, CompUSA, Dixons and Staples, to single users and small home offices in the form of traditional boxed product. These products include free and for-fee software updates and technical support services. Our on-line subscription services are delivered through the use of an Internet browser at our McAfee.com web site and through multiple on-line service providers and original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs.

Until recently, McAfee System Protection Solutions also included our Magic Service Desk business, offering management and visibility of desktop and server systems. In December 2003, we agreed to sell our Magic Service Desk business to BMC Software. The transaction closed in January 2004.

McAfee Network Protection Solutions

McAfee Network Protection Solutions helps enterprises, small businesses, government agencies, educational organizations and service providers maximize the availability, performance and security of their network infrastructure. The McAfee Network Protection Solutions portfolio features a range of products including Sniffer and the nPO Solution for network management. Sniffer’s products capture data, monitor network traffic and collect and report on key network statistics. These products are also designed to optimize network and application performance and increase network reliability by uncovering and analyzing network problems and network security vulnerabilities and recommending solutions to such problems. Other McAfee Network Protection Solutions products include InfiniStream Security Forensics for security forensics and McAfee IntruShield for network intrusion detection and prevention. Customers for these products include enterprises, government agencies and educational organizations, as well as service providers.
 
Expert Services and Technical Support

We have established Expert Services and Technical Support to provide professional assistance in the design, installation, configuration and implementation of our customers’ networks and acquired products. Expert Services is focused on two service markets: Consulting Services and Education Services.

Consulting Services support product integrations and deployment with an array of standardized and custom offerings. Consulting Services also offer other services in both the security and networking areas, including early assessment and design work, as well as emergency outbreak and network troubleshooting assistance. Our consulting services organization is organized around our product groups.

Education Services offer customers an extensive curriculum of computer network technology courses, including protocol analysis and troubleshooting, security and network management tools. Education Services provides public classes and customized on-site training at customer locations.

The PrimeSupport program provides our customers on-line and telephone-based technical support in an effort to ensure that our products are installed and working properly. To meet customers’ varying needs, PrimeSupport offers a choice of the on-line ServicePortal or the telephone-based Connect, Priority and Enterprise. All PrimeSupport programs include software updates and upgrades. PrimeSupport is available to all customers worldwide from various regional support centers.

• PrimeSupport ServicePortal — Consists of a searchable, knowledge base of technical solutions and links to a variety of technical documents such as product FAQs and technical notes.

• PrimeSupport Connect — Provides toll-free telephone access to technical support during regular business hours and access to the on-line ServicePortal.

• PrimeSupport Priority — Provides priority, unlimited, toll-free (where available) telephone access to technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and access to the on-line ServicePortal.

• PrimeSupport Enterprise — Offers proactive, personalized service and includes an assigned technical support engineer from our Enterprise support team, proactive support contact (telephone or email) with customer-defined frequency, election of five designated customer contacts and access to the on-line ServicePortal.

In addition, we also offer our consumer users technical support services made available at our McAfee.com website on both a free and fee-based basis, depending on the support level required.

Competition

The markets for our products are intensely competitive and are subject to rapid changes in technology. We also expect competition to increase in the near-term. We believe that the principal competitive factors affecting the markets for our products include, but are not limited to:


• performance

• quality

• breadth of product group

• integration of products

• brand name recognition

• price

• functionality

• customer support

• frequency of upgrades and updates

• manageability of products

• reputation

We believe that we compete favorably against our competitors in each of these areas. However, some of our competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, stronger relationships with channel partners, larger technical staffs, established relationships with hardware vendors and/or greater financial, technical and marketing resources. These factors may provide our competitors with an advantage in penetrating markets with their network security and management products.

Anti-Virus. Our principal competitors in the anti-virus market are Symantec and Computer Associates. Trend Micro remains the strongest competitor in the Asian anti-virus market. Sophos, Fsecure, Panda, and Dr. Ahn’s are also showing growth in their respective markets. As a result of its GeCAD Software acquisition, at some point we may also compete directly against Microsoft.

Network Security and Intrusion Detection and Protection. Our principal competitors in the security market vary by product type. For intrusion detection and prevention products, we compete with Cisco Systems, Computer Associates, Enterasys, Fortinet, Internet Security Systems, NetScreen (which recently agreed to be acquired by Juniper Networks, Inc.), Sourcefire, Symantec and TippingPoint Technologies. The markets for encryption and virtual private network, or VPN, products are highly fragmented with numerous small and large vendors. VPN competitors include hardware and software vendors, including telecommunications companies and traditional networking suppliers.

Network Fault Identification and Application Performance Management. Our principal competitors in the network fault identification and application performance management market are NetScout and WildPackets. Other competitors include Agilent, Cisco Systems, Compuware Corporation, Concord Communications, Finisar, Fluke Networks, Network Instruments and Niksun.

Other Competitors. In addition to competition from large technology companies such as HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Novell that may offer network and system protection products as enhancements to their operating systems, we also face competition from smaller companies and shareware authors that may develop competing products.
 

Security Software Companies in the Directory

Check Point Software Technologies

Computer Associates

Cyberguard

Internet Security Systems

McAfee

NetIQ

Secure Computing

Symantec

Trend Micro