McAfee announced today that it has acquired Wireless Security Corp. for an undisclosed amount, with the intent of making managed wireless security services a future McAfee offering.
"We believe there's a tremendous market opportunity in the Wi-Fi space," said McAfee Senior Vice President Bill Kerrigan, who noted that many home wireless LAN users, as well as small and midsize businesses, find it hard to setp up and configure authentication and encryption security in their WLAN access points. McAfee envisions a managed service that would handle this task for them remotely.
Wireless Security corp., was co-founded in 2002 by the company's chairman and CEO, Dennis Rohan. It offers subscription-based services that let customers connect computers securely to wireless networks at home or in offices through a remotely managed authentication service.
"The residential user is not going to do this," said Craig Mathias, principal at Ashland, Mass. consultancy Farpoint Group, which focuses on wireless and mobile technologies. "However, the small-business market might be more receptive to the idea of managed WLAN security" Said Mathias.
McAfee has not yet set a price for the service.
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