Through The Years: A Timeline Of McAfee's Transformation

The New McAfee

McAfee has undergone a massive transformation over the past ten years. That transformation has included a blockbuster acquisition by Intel, new executive leadership, changing product lines and company brand, and, ultimately, its spinout this year into a standalone security vendor with the help of private equity. Those changes have shaped a company that remains one of the largest security vendors in today's market. As part of CRN's June issue, take a look back through the long line of events – both good and bad – that helped shape the company McAfee is today, and might provide some insight into where the security vendor is heading next.

April 2004

Network Associates announces that it was selling its unprofitable Sniffer network management and analysis product line to Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group, and would change its name to McAfee (McAfee Associates, founded by John McAfee (pictured), had been part of a merger of four companies to create Network Associates in 1997) The changes were part of a cost reduction plan to accelerate sales and profits by focusing solely on security products and services.

October 11, 2006

McAfee President Kevin Weiss is fired and CEO George Samenuk announced he would retire after a probe into company accounting problems. Dale Fuller (pictured) is announced as interim CEO.

March 5, 2007

McAfee names Dave DeWalt, former Documentum president and CEO, as president and CEO.

April 19, 2010

Intel announces it plans to acquire McAfee in a blockbuster $7.68 billion deal. Intel's vision at the time was to bring together security software with its chip hardware, a move it said would better protect the billions of new Internet-connected and mobile devices.

July 12, 2011

McAfee announces the resignation of president and CEO Dave DeWalt. The company also announced the creation of co-president roles, to be filled by Executive Vice President for Global Operations Michael DeCesare (pictured) and Executive Vice President and General Manager, Consumer, Mobile and Small Business Todd Gebhart.

January 2014

Intel rebrands McAfee as Intel Security, though the brand continues to operate as an independent subsidiary.

October 1, 2014

Intel Security appoints Chris Young from Cisco as senior vice president and general manager to lead the business.

February 25, 2015

Michael DeCesare, former McAfee president, leaves to take a role as CEO of ForeScout Technologies. His departure was the latest in a wave of executive departures from Intel Security at that time, including CTO Michael Fey and SVP of the U.S. theatre Steve Tchejeyan to Blue Coat Systems, both to Blue Coat Systems.

O ctober 27, 2015

Intel Security revamps its strategy to focus on the "threat defense lifecycle," with technologies for protection, detection and remediation. The new strategy involves product enhancements around the endpoint and the cloud, as well as an increased focus on threat intelligence, analytics, and third-party integration into the company's Data Exchange Layer (DXL) technology and ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) centralized management system.

October 2015

Intel Security begins to divest and end of life product lines that don’t align with its new strategy, including the end of life of nearly a dozen products, including its MX Logic email security line, and the sale of its McAfee Next-Generation Firewall and McAfee Firewall Enterprise businesses to Forcepoint (formerly Raytheon|Websense).

September 7, 2016

Intel announces plans to sell its Intel Security portfolio in a $4.2 billion deal with TPG Capital. Under the deal, TPG will own a 51 percent stake in Intel Security, which will reassume the McAfee name, with Intel holding the remaining 49 percent. Intel Security said the split will allow it to drive focus around its cybersecurity portfolio, allowing for accelerated innovation, faster execution and long-term growth.

November 2, 2016

Intel Security unveils new McAfee logo for when it spins out from parent company Intel.

April 4, 2017

Intel Security closes its split from Intel and reassumes the McAfee name as it once again becomes a standalone security vendor. Intel Security head Chris Young assumes the CEO role at McAfee.