Thursday, September 08, 2005

Intel enters anti-virus market via Grisoft

Intel announced Tuesday that it has signed an agreement to acquire a $16M stake in Czech Republic anti-virus firm Grisoft, subject to approval by the Czech competition council. Grisoft is the developer behind the relatively popular AVG Anti-Virus, which is among the leading security products in terms of widespread adoption with a userbase of around 25 million worldwide.

AVG Anti-Virus has gained popularity as a stable, frequently updated, easy-to-use security product, which doesn't hog all your system resources when it's running. Arguably the most important reason for its widespread adoption is that there's a free edition available for home or non-commercial use.

Hopefully, with the backing of Intel, Grisoft will be able to achieve greater market penetration and be able to integrate even better features into their already great product. Even more hopefully, Intel's involvement won't see the end of another great and free product; those two words don't appear together often enough.

Cross your fingers, folks.

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