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- F1 champion Sebastian Vettel misses the point with Social Media
The motorsport world has gradually started to shake off the festive cobwebs as January continues to get the new calendar year underway with a number of high profile events taking place this week.
- Social Media and London 2012
We submitted a short blog for The UK Sports Network this week with some social media predictions for 2012. Being Olympics year, and with a number of athletes on the Sine Qua Non books, including Zac Purchase and Paralympic athletes Charlotte Henshaw and Ollie Hynd, we looked at how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first true social media summer Games.
RT @InsideFerrari: Ferrari and Santander together until 2017 http://t.co/iGjflr3D #F1 #Sponsorship
Interesting to see how #London2012 sponsors use athletes - past and present - in activation and engagement #cisdcampbell
Intel buys McAfee for almost $8bn
Yesterday’s big news that Intel is to buy McAfee was a surprise for many in terms of the acquirer but not the target. As the second biggest independent security software company, McAfee had been tipped to be on HP’s target list, despite the fact that they are still digesting 3Com and Palm as well as looking for a new CEO.
Intel is paying a significant premium over market price which equates to almost four times last year’s revenue. This indicates the growing importance of the security market and the fact that the big players want a slice of this action. It’s also pretty interesting given that Microsoft have also already, in effect, signalled their intention to commoditise the anti-virus and malware protection market with Security Essentials. The Intel partyline is that the union can create a new category offering integrated hardware and software solutions which will be better than a software only solution. But hold on, doesn’t the Gadget Show acclaimed Yoggie solution already do just that with it firewalled Linux machine on a card/stick?
There has already been comment such as that on CIO that this acquisition will hinder innovation in this market. The argument goes that innovation comes from small, fleet footed businesses, but while McAfee is small in Intel terms it certainly isn’t a small company. Instead I think the deal will encourage innovation by leaving room for the host of high growth companies in this space such as Kaspersky Lab or F-Secure or Sophos or Trend Micro or even Yoggie.
Let’s also not forget that there is a lot more to cyber security than anti-virus. There are so many other areas from remote access to privacy to usage policy compliance that are attracting attention. Again there are many small innovative companies here such as Dtex Systems that are address both focussed cyber threats as well as the broader security ecosystem. Far from mourning innovation in this move we should be welcoming an opportunity that gives headroom for all the tier two players to flourish in.
Chris Ritchie
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