Two of Europe’s most famous anti-virus companies, famous for their free product editions and founded in what was at the time Czechoslovakia, are looking to become one.
How much money is on the table from Avast to acquire AVG? A tidy $1.3 billion.
Here is what Avast CEO Vince Steckler has to say:
“Under an agreement signed with AVG, Avast will be making an offer ($25 per share or about $1.3 billion in total) to buy all shares of AVG’s stock which AVG’s board is recommending their shareholders accept. If the AVG shareholders do accept, following the various governmental regulators approvals, AVG will become part of Avast and we will jointly work on a great future together. We expect this to take a few months.”
…
“I do think this combination is great for our users. We will have over 250 million PC/Mac users enabling us to gather even more threat data to improve the protection to our users. In mobile, our combined 160 million mobile users will be used to improve protection as well as to provide an important stepping stone into the Internet of things. Additionally, we will be gaining some exciting mobile technology designed to protect families on line. In SMB, we will be better able to support our business users with a larger geographic footprint, better technical support, and the best technologies from our two companies.”
When those early pioneers started writing anti-virus software in their back bedrooms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they can never have imagined things would grow so big.
Read Avast’s corporate press release here.
We certainly didn't!
Does anybody know why so many AV programs come out of ex–communist countries? Is it similar to Michael Palin's speculation about major religions developing in deserts since deserts offer ample opportunities for self-introspection?
I've been using Avast! for years. So in regards to them and AVG, more power to then.
My only problem with Avast! of late is that even though I'm paying for their product, they constantly have nag popups to try to sell me additional products of theirs. Of course the nag popups come across as a feature you have but not activated. However when you click the, "improve your PC performance" or other such popup, you then discover that for an additional set of prices, they'll sell you whatever "feature" the popup was talking about. *_* I still use Avast! though since they otherwise have been good to me.