McAfee CEO: We will work with chip makers other than Intel

McAfee chief executive and president Dave DeWalt kicked off today's annual customer conference in Sydney by addressing the one issue on everyone's mind: the proposed acquisition by Intel.

Although he was unable to shed much light on the deal, which is yet to close, DeWalt told customers and partners that McAfee planned to remain innovative and autonomous.

"Every year we come [here] with acquisition and product news and this year is no different, [except that] this time, we've been acquired," DeWalt said.  

He said the proposed joined entity would create a "new pillar of security" to defend the growing cybersecurity threat. He said there are more than 30 million threats detected in one year and to defend that "exponential innovation was needed."

"We're trying to take [McAfee] to the next level after 23 years. It's really thinking about security in a different way.

"I've been very impressed by Intel's focus on innovation - our goal is to drive innovation together," DeWalt said.

Further, DeWalt played down anti-competitive fears that arose after Intel announced its plans last month.

"As a wholly-owned subsidiary, we are open to other chip makers and other security companies," he said.

Meanwhile, DeWalt said the cloud was "absolutely a critical component and a tremendous asset to do real-time security".

The end-point and consumerisation of IT and protecting and the network was as important. 

"Today all devices are connected to the internet, we need to secure them," he said.