Together Is Power
Slogan Is Nonsense
McAfee is McAfee again: the security company that Intel thought was worth US$7.68bn in 2010 and then sold 51 per cent of for $3.1bn in 2016 is now independent once more. McAfee LLC's new CEO, a chap named Christopher D. Young, has penned a letter setting out his stall. It's a minor masterpiece of ShinyHappyCorpSpeak™, …
“The new design reflects our belief that Together is power, a concept so central to the new McAfee brand that we have adopted it as our tagline. To depict our pledge to help customers defend all that matters, you'll see us use the shield to surround images that convey the connected world and the need to protect all aspects of it. A refreshed shade of red, a color strongly associated with both the McAfee brand and power itself, offers a timeless reminder of our enduring commitment to a cybersecurity marketplace we've served for more than two decades.”
I think I just felt a little bit of sick come up
I notice no mention of something along the lines of "we're going to start building stuff people actually want to buy again, rather than just getting foisted upon them by corporate suits whose bonus depends entirely on their ability to cut a deal to save 50 cents per seat for the whole company"
Is it me, or am I starting to get cynical these days?
A while ago I bought a new machine from PC Dixon's Curry World (I know, I know...I should have known better) and it came with McAfee pre-installed on a 30-day trial.
I know that the software is allegedly a bit of a b****r to completely uninstall/eradicate, and that A/V software works at a fairly low level. I did briefly consider paying the subscription just to avoid f***ing up my new PC....then I felt a bit dirty for thinking that and went through the rather tortuous uninstall process.
Made me wonder how many subscriptions there are to McAfee by people who see paying a few quid as just being the path of least resistance.
"use the shield to surround images that convey the connected world and the need to protect all aspects of it. A refreshed shade of red, a color strongly associated with both the McAfee brand and power itself, offers a timeless reminder of our enduring commitment"
It takes a man very confident in his sexuality and determined to get every cent out of his spending on brand consultants to read this script that he was handed. It's like Martha Stewart or Vivienne Westwood decided to switch careers to cybersecurity.
“A refreshed shade of red, a color strongly associated with both the McAfee brand and power itself, offers a timeless reminder of our enduring commitment to a cybersecurity marketplace we've served for more than two decades.”
A statement full of buzz words and marketing drivel. What are you actually going to do to improve your products?
Just because you've been in the game for over 20 years doesn't mean that your products are any good.
EPO *shudders*
A few weeks ago one of their updates screwed up my Windows 10 laptop. Luckily I had access to another PC to download the Windows 10 s/w to repair it. No help from McAfee support for 10 days probably because they were coping with all the other users with the same problem. No response to online chat despite promise that the queue was only 10 minutes long.
No apologies, no decent support so no more subscriptions from me.
Unfortunately everything sounds really good when spoken and doesn't make sense when decoded. Expect to see some concerning news stories about ShinyHappy and just because you use a Security Product, doesn't mean they aren't violating privacy in the same way the 3rd parties do, which they are "flagging". This is all publicly available news. Read the Privacy Policy closely.