Network Associates Inc, the company formed out of the merger of network security company McAfee Associates Inc and network management company Network General back in October (CI No 3,267), has acquired Helix Software Co, a Long-Island, New York-based PC utilities company, on undisclosed terms. The buy takes the constituent parts of Network Associates up to four, including Pretty Good Privacy Inc, which the company acquired earlier this month (CI No 3,302). Network Associates says it plans to use the Helix PC diagnostics technology for desktop systems, combined with the network-based security and monitoring, inventory management and change control software from its other divisions, to aim for what it calls the holy grail of the systems management industry – the self-healing PC. It already has the MMC central management console, to which it will integrate the Helix products, which include the Nut&Bolts toolset of Windows power tools, and the Hurricane range of performance and memory maximizing tools. Helix has concentrated on the high volume, packaged retail software market, but Network Associates, while continuing that business, is more interested in developing the technology for the corporate marketplace. Growing fast, Network Associates is now a $630m, 1,800 staff outfit. Its main task is to integrate the various security technology it’s brought together into a single suite of security management software, moving away from the single component point-products that have been characteristic of the industry to date, and which force customers to do the integration work. The first fruits of that effort are due out in the first quarter of next year. And the company is also working on active intrusion devices it says are likely to replace the current generation of passive firewalls.
