Intel purchase of McAfee cleared by EU after Intel makes interoperability promises

The European Commission, which enforces EU competition law, said that the deal was potentially anti-competitive. Following an investigation it said that it needed assurances from Intel to approve the deal.

"The Commission's investigation identified serious competition concerns regarding the possible bundling of CPUs and chipsets on the one hand with McAfee's security solutions, on the other hand," said a Commission statement. "In particular, the Commission was concerned that, as a result of the proposed transaction as initially notified, other companies' security solutions might have suffered from a lack of interoperability with Intel CPUs and chipsets or from a technical tying between the latter and McAfee’s security solutions."

"The Commission was also concerned about possible effects on Intel’s competitors if McAfee solutions were no longer compatible with non-Intel CPUs and chipsets," it said.

Intel promised to make sure that its systems and those of rivals to McAfee could inter-operate.

"In order to address the Commission's concerns, Intel committed, among other things, to ensure that vendors of rival security solutions will have access to all necessary information to use functionalities of Intel's CPUs and chipsets in the same way as those functionalities used by McAfee," it said. "Intel also committed not to actively impede competitors' security solutions from running on Intel CPUs or chipsets."

The companies notified their intention to merge in November and the Commission said that it worked closely with US competition regulator the Federal Trade Commission, which approved the deal in December.

The £7.68 billion acquisition was first announced in August and is seen by analysts as a way for Intel to have security built in to its hardware.

"The commitments submitted by Intel strike the right balance, as they allow preserving both competition and the beneficial effects of the merger," said Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy Joaquín Almunia. "These changes will ensure that vigorous competition is maintained and that consumers get the best result in terms of price, choice and quality of the IT security products."