The Hindu : Business : McAfee plans to acquire tech firms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 30, 2006

Business

Business

McAfee plans to acquire tech firms

Special Correspondent

To raise headcount in India Centre

BANGALORE: Global security provider for systems and networks, McAfee, Inc, will invest over $80 million to expand its India Centre over the next four years and hire 400 more employees to ramp up headcount from about 600 to over 1,000 employees by end-2008, the Santa Clara, California-based company's CEO and Chairman, George Samenuk, announced here on Wednesday.

McAfee India Centre here, the company's largest research and development centre around the world, would be focussing on engineering ownership of many products in a strategic move to meet the growing global demand for on-line security solutions.

"One of the key drivers that has helped McAfee transform into a leading global security provider and achieve best-in-class profitability since 2002 is our R&D centre in India. It contributed greatly to the company's profitability with the profit margins rising from 13 per cent in 2004 to 25 per cent in 2005, Mr. Samenuk said.

With cash reserves of $1.2 billion, McAfee is looking at cash acquisition of technology firms with price ranging from $20 million to $400-500 million.

"Security is the hardest area in technology and we like buying newest technology in security to drive growth," Mr. Samenuk said.

Mr. Samenuk said about a third of the company's total engineering workforce was now located in India.

It was projected that about 50-60 per cent of the 1,000-odd Indian employee strength by end-2008 would be engineers.

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