Intel vPro - Intel finally reveals the new name for their future platforms - Intel Vpro Platform. The Intels vPro platform will replace the old Centrino Platform. Intel's vPro Platform will be the base for Intel's business Desktops. Look for Intels new sticker -Intel vPro!! Read more on Intel vPro Platform:
Intel to Launch vPro Bundle for Business Desktops in 2006
vPro combines Conroe hardware with software services.
Ben Ames
April 24, 2006
Seeking to repeat its success with the Centrino platform for notebook PCs, Intel said today it will launch vPro, a collection of hardware and software services based on its new Conroe processor for business desktops.
Conroe is the desktop version of the three new 64-bit, dual-core chips that Intel hopes will reverse its slide in market share compared with Advanced Micro Devices. Conroe is not due out until the third quarter, but Intel, of Santa Clara, California, announced vPro now to give vendors time to build it into their PCs.
The vPro package will deliver low IT maintenance costs, high security, and better energy efficiency, said Intel president and chief executive officer Paul Otellini at a press conference in San Francisco.
Both Hardware and Software
The package will achieve that goal by combining hardware and software features, just as Centrino does. Included will be a Conroe processor, a new chip set, management and virtualization technology from Intel, and security services from Symantec.
A desktop running the vPro package will incur lower IT maintenance costs than other PCs by ensuring that IT staffers can solve most of its computer problems remotely, Intel said.
Already, network administrators can solve 87 percent of typical business desktop problems remotely, Otellini said. But the few remaining problems that require personal "desktop visits" generate almost half the maintenance cost for a typical company.
PC Maintenance Most Costly
"IT spending is problematic," Otellini said. "A typical shop spends 89 percent of its IT budget for day-to-day maintenance, and only 11 percent on new capital investment, which is crucial to stay competitive in business."
Put another way, IT departments used to be able to pay for four years of maintenance with the same amount of money they would spend on a new PC. Today that equation has flipped, so annual maintenance now costs twice the price of a new PC, he said.
Intel can use vPro to compete for a bigger share of business spending in both maintenance and hardware.
"In recent years, the notebook has seen great evolution, but the good old desktop has not," Otellini said. "But the desktop still has an enormous installed base; desktops are more than 70 percent of all PCs sold, about 85 million units per year."
Intel plans to put a small vPro sticker on each desktop, just as it labels notebooks with Centrino stickers today.
Intel plans to deliver vPro in 2006, with a road map to add three improvements--spread it from desktops to notebooks, upgrade the processor from a dual-core processor to a quad-core chip, and extend virtualization from the processor to the hard drive and I/O channels--by 2007.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125530,00.asp
Intel Rebrands business systems as 'VPro'
Jessica Davis
25 April, 2006
Marshalling its forces against an increasingly bothersome threat by rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel has pulled together three of its most recent enterprise technology initiatives under a single brand umbrella it is calling VPro, aimed at IT and automating enterprise management.
The company’s CEO Paul Otellini announced the new platform at an event. “VPro helps us reinvent the business client,” said Otellini. The announcement comes at a time when Intel is facing a growing threat by AMD in the enterprise space. The smaller processor company has made penetration into the commercial/enterprise space its top priority this year.
Intel hopes the new brand can repeat the success of its Centrino platform launch which was aimed at the consumer market. And while marketing plans for the brand are similar, including VPro stickers on desktop computer products that incorporate the platform, Intel said the budget for the VPro campaign will not be as large as the Centrino budget because the enterprise audience is smaller than the consumer audience.
“It is not a broad campaign in the sense of Centrino, but we will have an active campaign, said Tom Kilroy, v-p of the digital enterprise platform at Intel, during a question and answer session with members of the press. “We are building excitement and awareness in targeted way.”
The company plans a series of events between now and the platform launch in Q3 to familiarise enterprise customers with the platform’s capabilities. In addition, Intel will offer “seed” computers to enterprise customers now so that they can test the platform in their own enterprise environments.
VPro pulls in “three pillars,” Intel’s Active Management Technology, its security technologies which rely heavily on partitioning, and its new Core Microarchitecture to improve performance per watt.
Intel will bring the technology to the desktop first, with systems available in Q3. Then, in early 2007 the company will extend the platform to address mobile clients. Further out on the horizon Intel plans to introduce quad-core to the platform’s hardware environment and extend virtualization beyond the microprocessor to other parts of the system such as the hard drive and the input/output (I/O) of the PC, Otellini said.
Three pillars
The three “pillars” included in the VPro platform are designed to improve operational efficiency for IT organisations. The first pillar is the second generation of Intel’s Active Management Technology. Otellini noted that 87 per cent of all business desktop problems can be addressed remotely, and that the remaining 13 per cent – the desktop visits – account for half of the costs in the enterprise.
“We’ve put Active Management into the chipset,” said Greg Bryant, general manager of the digital enterprise platform at Intel, during the press question and answer session. That means that agents remain alive and functioning even if something has tried to shut them off. “It’s almost a low level firewall capability in the chipset.”
The second “pillar” is security, Otellini said. This piece of the VPro platform pulls from AMT and virtualisation technology. Intel demonstrated an “embedded appliance” for security on the PC, so that even when the end user disables, for example, the firewall, the PC itself is still protected.
The third “pillar” of the new brand is energy efficient performance in the form of Intel’s new Core Microarchitecture, announced at the company’s recent Intel Developers Forum in March. Otellini said that Intel’s new Core Microarchitecture will be embodied in the desktop processor, code-named Conroe and set for release in Q3.
Conroe will offer twice the performance of a Pentium 4 and offer more than four times the energy efficiency in performance per watt than Pentium 4 devices available today, Otellini said.
All together, Intel is hoping the new brand will encourage IT buyers to recognise the value of its enterprise client platform.
“This gives them something to care about and go when they are thinking about replacing a desktop,” said Bryant. “‘Do I buy the cheapest thing I can get’ or do we give them something to care about. We are giving them a reason to buy a professional PC and giving them a reason to upgrade.”
Source: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2006/04/25/38377/Intelrebrandsbusinesssystemsas%E2%80%98VPro%E2%80%99.htm
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