Network Associates has reported its third quarter earnings, and while the company said that it has returned to profitability, it has unsettling news for fans of its PGP Security products.
Network Associates said that excluding its McAfee.com business, it reported a third quarter net revenue of $193 million. It also reported that it’s “cash flow positive,” and ended the quarter with cash and marketable securities totaling $956.8 million. The company attributes the turnaround to cost-saving initiatives and “increased operating efficiencies.”
Network Associates has also announced plans to further consolidate its business. The company is integrating some of its corporate and e-business PGP Security products into its McAfee and Sniffer product lines, but the company said that it would look for a buyer for its PGP Desktop Security software, which also includes a Macintosh version.
PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. The encryption system started life as a tool designed to work on e-mail software, and has grown since then. Network Associates’ PGP Desktop Security provides users with the ability to encrypt both hard drive volumes and network communications to help discourage unauthorized and unwelcome access either locally or over a network.
The news of Network Associates’ decision to divest itself of PGP Desktop Security is bound to disappoint some Mac users, who were waiting for Network Associates to produce an OS X-native version. Version 7.0 of the software had won a Macworld magazine Eddy award for Best Utility this past January. Mac OS versions between 8.6.1 and 9.x are supported by the existing software. Network Associates said that it will “continue to maintain and support” the software as it looks for a buyer. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Julian Y. Koh for info used in this article.)