Now that Apple is the proud owner of AuthenTec, we have all reasons to believe that the company is going to make lot of improvements in the security of its devices. Apple today announced that it has closed the deal with AuthenTec, the leaders in security solutions for $356 million. AuthenTec claims that till date it has shipped more than 100 million fingerprint sensors, out of which 15 million sensors were made especially for mobile phones. Apple had to pay a price of $8 a share for AuthenTec, a 58 percent premium over the company’s $5.07 stock price on Thursday.
AuthenTec is one of the first companies to offer integrated security chips for smartphones. These security chips gained popularity instantly as these hold the capacity to encrypt data, which made mobile phones safer entity for businesses. These chips also offered network security solutions.
With Apple overtaking AuthenTec, we are expecting that the company will make full use of AuthenTec’s technology in its devices such as iPhone, iPad, iOS devices and even Mac computers as all of them needed the much talked about security. This step is definitely going to help the company improve its reputation as far as its security measures were concerned.
Jack Gold, principal analyst and founder at J. Gold Associates said, “This is a blocking move by Apple in the tablets/notebooks space. AuthenTec’s major business is fingerprint sensors. Most of all, the notebook vendors use their chips for log in/authentication. Looks like Apple wants to sew up that market. I see this less of a phone play, as there is virtually no fingerprint sign in on phones (it was tried in the past by HP and BB but the users didn’t like it). While AuthenTec does make other chips (like NFC) I see this as much less of an issue for the device manufacturers as there is ample supply from other vendors on this.”
“I don’t think any long term contract for AuthenTec products will be affected if the manufacturer already has them in place,” Gold added. “But clearly this will put Apple at the head of the queue for any new products or custom products, and also at the head of the queue for delivery if there is any issue with supply. With all the cash on hand, this is a pretty small purchase for Apple that assures some supply for them – nice insurance policy.”
