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Network Associates had been attempting to sell its wireless and desktop PGP encryption products for over a year, before announcing on Monday that it had finally sold the business to PGP Corporation for an undisclosed sum.
PGP Corporation is a start-up company that has received over USD14 million from Doll Capital Management and Venrock Associates. The principals of the company include many of the Network Associate employees who had developed the technology since Network Associates acquired it over five years ago.
"Customers will benefit from PGP Corp's dedication to the continued development of PGP desktop and wireless technology," said Sandra England, Network Associates' executive vice president of business development and strategic research, in a statement.
PGP, which stands for "pretty good privacy" is one of the most commonly used privacy methods on the Internet, because it is effective, easy to use and free. Network Associates bought the technology in 1997 from Phil Zimmerman, its inventor. Nevertheless, it is still possible to get PGP for free from various freeware sites on the Internet.
PGP Corporation will acquire PGPMail, PGPfile, PGPdisk, PGPWireless, PGPadmin, and PGPkeyserver, in addition to PGPsdk software development kit and PGP Corporate Desktop. Current Network Associates customers that have purchased PGP products will have their software license agreements transferred to the new company.
However, Network Associates will keep products developed using PGPsdk encryption development software, including those serving McAfee anti-virus software. These included McAfee E-Business Server, McAfee Desktop Firewall and McAfee VPN Client.
Following the sale, Network Associates plans to concentrate on its anti-virus software, network and application management and its Web-based service desk software, the company said.
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