Intel Allowed to Acquire McAfee by the EU, Has to Abide By Rule

It appears that one of the biggest acquisitions of the past two years is about to be completed, though Intel seems to have found that it will have to abide by a certain condition in exchange for the EU's approval.

Some time ago, the entire IT industry raised at least an eyebrow upon learning of Intel's plans to pay a huge sum of money in order to buy McAfee.

For those that are not aware, McAfee is one of the world's best-known developers of security software.

Basically, Intel offered to pay over $7 billion back in August, 2010, which is the equivalent of $48 per share.

Of course originally, the transaction was supposed to be completed even before the end of last year, but delays happened when the EU wouldn't immediately approve the transaction.

Even now it is not altogether clear why the Santa Clara, California-based chip giant even decided to buy the antivirus software firm.

Initially, it was suspected Intel would integrate security into its chips, and that rival security software would not longer work on them. This would have been troublesome, considering that 80% of the world's PCs and servers use Intel units.

The EU's condition was that this not happen, meaning that all future central processors will continue to support any other security software.

"The commitments submitted by Intel strike the right balance, as they allow preserving both competition and the beneficial effects of the merger," Joaquín Almunia, the Commission's vice president in charge of competition policy, said.

"These changes will ensure that vigorous competition is maintained and that consumers get the best result in terms of price, choice and quality of the IT security products," he added.

For those interested in the exact number, the CPU maker will pay McAfee the sum of $7.68 billion and the merger shouldn't take long to be fully taken care of.