InformationWeek

October 20, 1997

Security, Management Meld

McAfee and Network General to merge--and ride the coattails of Microsoft

cAfee Associates and Network General Corp. are merging, promising customers a single software suite for security, antivirus, and network management. The new company, to be called Network Associates Inc., will be a top-10 software vendor with revenue of $600 million, and is banking on the enterprise success of the No. 1 software vendor and its Windows NT platform.

"There's a major technology dislocation from Unix to NT," says McAfee CEO William Larson, who will become chairman and CEO of Network Associates once the $1.3 billion stock deal is completed, probably wit hin 90 days. "We've optimized our technology to Microsoft."

Network Associates' new NetTools suite will deliver antivirus capabilities, network security, network-performance-analysis features that build on Network General's Sniffer line, and help-desk management.

El Paso Energy, a Houston utility, uses McAfee's antivirus products and Network General's network-performance-management products. "Network General is at the top end of breaking down frames and interpreting them," says Larry Ross, manager of networks for El Paso Energy. "Putting a little virus protection into that would be great. And NT is our corporate direction."

BankBoston, which has some experience with McAfee acquisitions, having been a user of Vycor Corp.'s help-desk product when Vycor was acquired by McAfee last year, is optimistic about this latest deal. "I would like to think this will help with network management," says BankBoston systems analyst Bob Spears, adding that the bank is also a Network General user. "If we could conne ct more tools into our help desk, we could get quicker analysis on our trouble tickets."

The deal is still subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.

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