We are a leading dedicated security technology company that secures systems
and networks from known and unknown threats around the world. We empower home
users, businesses, government agencies, service providers and our partners with
the ability to block attacks, prevent disruptions, and continuously track and
improve their security.
Security has emerged as one of the most critical concerns facing businesses
and consumers. Security breaches have risen dramatically in the past few years,
fueled in part by the proliferation of mobile devices such as laptop computers,
cell phones and “smart phones” with email and web-surfing capabilities.
For corporations, the increasing frequency of security breaches has coincided
with expanding regulatory compliance requirements relating to security and more
specifically, to privacy. Failure to comply with these requirements, and with
the requirements of internal security policies and procedures, creates an additional
level of enterprise risk. For consumers, online fraud and security concerns
increasingly discourages customers from transacting online — for example,
visiting and purchasing from e-commerce sites, using online banking services
and preparing taxes online. All of these trends point toward a growing demand
for effective security solutions.
We apply business discipline and a pragmatic approach to security that is based
on four principles of security risk management: (I) identify and prioritize
assets, (II) determine acceptable risk, (III) protect against threats and (IV)
enforce and measure compliance. We incorporate some or all of these principles
into our solutions. Our solutions protect systems and networks by blocking immediate
threats while proactively providing protection from future threats. We also
provide software to manage and enforce security policies for organizations of
any size. Finally, we incorporate McAfee Expert Services, Foundstone services
and technical support to ensure a solution is actively meeting our customers’
needs.
BUSINESS MODELS
We derive our revenue from three sources: (I) service and support revenue, which
includes maintenance, training and consulting revenue; (II) subscription revenue,
which consists of revenue from customers who purchase licenses for products
for the term of the subscription; and (III) product revenue, which includes
revenue from perpetual licenses (those with a one-time license fee) and from
hardware sales.
COMPETITION
Our principal competitors in the corporate market are as follows:
System Protection Market. Our principal competitors in the anti-virus market
are Symantec Corp., Trend Micro, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation, each of which
operates on a world-wide basis. Trend Micro Inc. remains the strongest competitor
in the Asian anti-virus market. Kaspersky Lab, Inc., ESET Software, Panda Software,
Sophos, F-Secure Corporation and Dr. Ahn’s Anti-Virus Lab are also competitors
in their respective markets.
Network Protection Market. Our principal competitors in the network protection
market are Cisco Systems Inc., IBM Juniper Networks, Inc., Symantec Corp., Check
Point Software Technologies Ltd., Sourcefire, Inc. and 3Com Corporation. IBM,
Qualys and nCircle are the strongest competitors in the vulnerability management
market.
Email and Web Security Market. Our principal competitors in the email and web
security market, which includes our SiteAdvisor products, include Microsoft
Corporation, Trend Micro, Inc., Symantec Corporation, Barracuda Networks and
various search engine providers, namely Google, Inc. and Yahoo!, Inc.
Other Competitors. In addition to competition from large technology companies
such as IBM, Novell Inc. and Microsoft Corporation, we also face competition
from smaller companies and shareware authors that may develop competing products.