[HIB]What Does Mobile ‘Security On A Chip’ Mean Anyway?

Intel surprised everyone last week by announcing its $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee, the second biggest security company in the world. At the time I quoted an analyst who explained Intel’s reasoning thusly: Intel bought McAfee so that they could embed security into Intel microprocessor chips. Putting “security on a chip” sounds like the right kind of vows for an Intel-McAfee wedding. But what does it actually mean? I asked Dan Zeck to venture a guess. Zeck is chief technologist at Antenna Software, which runs a platform that businesses like Coca-Cola and Xerox use to create mobile business applications. Zeck is the kind of guy who knows mobile devices inside and out, and myself and others think mobile security is a big part of why Intel scooped up McAfee. As Zeck explains it, “security on a chip” does not mean just stuffing antivirus into silicon, although that may happen. It’s also about managing mobile devices — a much less sexy but arguably more important aspect of mobile that will become even more so as devices continue to make their way into the hands of business people.

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