McAfee, the computer security firm, announced that it is buying Trust Digital, a smartphone management and security software company.
McAfee, which has nearly $2 billion per year in sales, is hoping the acquisition of Trust Digital will allow it to present a total security loop, from endpoint, McAfee’s speciality, through a company’s smartphones, and back again.
Trust Digital helps “secure and manage corporate smartphones and PDAs” worldwide. They are global leader, though they have only about 40 employees to McAfee’s 6,000.
Trust Digital’s offerings support iPhone OS, Android, Web OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian mobile operating systems. McAfee expects to mesh these with its ePolicy Orchestrator, its “enterprise-class, open platform to centrally manage security for systems, networks, data, and compliance solutions.”
The companies expect the deal to close by June 30.
McAfee’s shares fell 11% last month, as its Q1 revenues and forecast came in under Wall Street estimates. That was in part due to the faulty signature it released that misidentified a Microsoft XP system file as a threat, along with foreign currency changes and a stock buyback.
The negotiations on the company’s purchase of Trust Digital would have begun long before that, but the hope no doubt is that this move will contribute toward reconciling future earnings with shareholder and analyst expectations.
