One year on from the acquisition of Stonesoft by McAfee, former UK and Ireland country manager Ash Patel said that he was excited by the adoption, but disappointed by the loss of the brand.
The $389 million deal, which completed one year ago today having been initially announced in May 2013, saw McAfee gain a strong foothold in the next generation firewall market. Talking to IT Security Guru, Patel said the feedback from within Stonesoft and its customers and partners had been very positive about the acquisition and that the next generation firewall offering was a positive fit into the McAfee offering.
He said: “They added our technology and it is all still there, and globally we are integrated with McAfee now and from my point of view, this has been a comfortable transition for my team and we are seeing the same with McAfee welcoming Stonesoft partners and vice versa.”
Patel admitted that the next generation market was “moving at a record pace” and it made sense for McAfee to add these solutions to their portfolio.
“They came across Stonesoft and they found our technology was up there with the rest in many ways and it has embedded well into the McAfee product and it has been well adopted,” he said. “The functionality has been adopted and there is a commitment from McAfee to put it together with research and development.”
He said that the majority of the Stonesoft staff had been kept on, and McAfee was using its Helsinki office as a base too and that the key players were still there, but he said from his point of view that it was a shame that the brand name had been dropped, as Stonesoft was a well-known name and the retention of the products was important for credibility.
He said: “It is a brand that I associate myself with from a commercial perspective and I think absolutely we made the right decision as McAfee has a much stronger brand reputation and recognition and tie into Intel and you are into the world’s top brands, and it is a shame not to leverage that.”
Patel said that the whole offering of evasion detection and firewall spaces were carried over, and his role was now to promote that sector as McAfee has an offering of 90 products. “Acquisitions can go one way or another, and I think it is moving in the right direction and focus it deserves.”
