McAfee, the brand Windows geeks know and mostly loathe, has acquired Singapore based tenCube with the intent to enter the mobile services spaces. Now unlike McAfee’s desktop antivirus software, the company doesn’t intend to scare the bejesus out of you into buying their bloatware. Instead they’d like to clone Apple’s MobileMe or RIM’s BlackBerry Protect and sell you on the benefits of having your mobile phone protected and backed up in the event that it gets lost or stolen.
WaveSecure, the product in question made by tenCube that was deemed attractive enough to warrant purchasing the entire company, works on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and even plain old feature phones. With it you can backup your text messages, contacts, anything on your SD card, find your device in case you lose it, as in see where it is on a Google Maps page, and even remotely wipe and disable your phone.
Services like this are a dime a dozen and if you’re a parent who has trust issues with your child or a small business owner who doesn’t want bumbling idiot High School students working at your company for the summer and losing a device with valuable secrets on it at an illegal keg party in someone’s garage, then yea, I could see the benefit. Operators tried to sell these services to consumers before, but failed because they were priced at $10 per month. Will a stand alone application you can buy from your smartphone’s respective application store be more successful? Too early to tell. We don’t know how McAfee intends to price the WaveSecure solution.
The deal is set to close this month. The amount of money changing hands is unknown. All we know is that you should keep your damn phone with you at all times. If you’re not using it, shove it in your pocket. It’s also nice to have “Home” in your contacts in case someone is nice enough to find your phone and call you to return it.
I’ve done that at least 3 times. Still not going to get into heaven though.