What goes around, comes around

McAfee just bought Secure Computing. I've always liked Secure and the strategy seems pretty decent. It is fascinating tracking a company like McAfee as it goes through its mergers and divestitures. (Note that McAfee used to be called Network Associates). Here's the timeline.

1. 1997 - McAfee Associates merges with Network General and its sniffer network monitoring solution ($1.3 billion).
2. 1997 - Network Associates acquires PGP, an encryption company ($35 million).
3. 1998 - Network Associates acquires Trusted Information Systems and its Gauntlet firewall ($300 million).
4. 2002 - Network Associates sells PGP to newly-formed PGP Corporation (terms undisclosed).
5. 2002 - Network Associates sells Gauntlet firewall to Secure Computing (terms undisclosed).
6. 2004 - Network Associates sells Sniffer product line to newly-formed Network General ($275 million).
7. 2007 - McAfee acquires Safeboot, an encryption company ($350 million).
8. 2008 - McAfee acquires Secure Computing and its firewall (plus) solutions ($465 million). Included in that (I presume) is Secure Computing's acquisition of Securify, a sniffer-like solution.

Breathe in, breathe out.

By the way, McAfee has bought a number of other companies as well, including Entercept, Intruvert, and Reconnex, but these were the ones that got acquired, divested, then re-acquired (in a manner of speaking).

Comments

[kurt wismer]

i think your timeline is a little off...

1997, mcafee associates merged with network general and the result was network associates...

[Pete Lindstrom]

@Kurt -

Thanks. Changes made.

[Mark Curphey]

That culture seems to go back to NAI days. They bought Balista back in the day (late 90's) and then Foundstone (another network scanner) for 86 mill in Oct 2004.

[Eric]

Don't forget about Reconnex last month :)

[Pete Lindstrom]

@Eric -

Not sure if you are suggesting McAfee bought and then sold a DLP provider, and now has rebought into the space with Reconnex or just listing other companies McAfee has bought...

If the latter, McAfee has also bought Deersoft, Entercept, Intruvert, Foundstone, Wireless Security, SiteAdvisor, Preventsys, Citadel Security, Onigma, and Scan Alert. These along with those cited above constitute everything I am aware of since 2003.