I've been chasing McAfee for a couple of weeks over what appear to be misleading statements about Windows Vista's security, and was disappointed last week not to have a phone interview with chairman and chief executive George Samenuk for a story in tomorrow's Technology section. Or, as various deadlines passed, anyone.
I was therefore pretty excited about the interview I had scheduled for 3pm today in London, with McAfee's president Kevin Weiss and George Heron, its chief scientist. They were, I was assured, prepared to deal with all the questions I'd raised in emails.
But they didn't. With half an hour to go, the PR called my mobile to say that Samenuk had suddenly retired, Weiss had been fired, and my intended interviewees were already on a plane back to the USA....
None of my doing, of course. They were simply the latest casualties of a string of "internal reviews" into the backdating of stock options that has also touched companies such as Apple, Monster Worldwide and CNet. As a result, McAfee will have to readjust its financial results. Restate 10 years, in fact.
In a statement, Samenuk said: "After almost six years at McAfee, I have retired as Chairman and CEO in the best interests of the company, its shareholders and employees. I regret that some of the stock option problems identified by the Special Committee occurred on my watch."
Anyway, now I can understand that McAfee probably wasn't just giving me the runaround. I'm sure that the unearthing of financial irregularities -- not to mention the filing of criminal fraud charges against former executives from Brocade Communications Systems and Comverse Technology Inc -- meant they had much more important things on their minds.
