Averill "is the biggest leap forward for us in end-user capabilities and capabilities for the IT manager that we've seen in five years
By Tom Krazit
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 7, 2006, 1:11 PM PST
SAN FRANCISCO--Business PCs haven't been the most exciting part of Intel's product plans over the last few years, but several new technologies will reinvigorate interest in the staid systems, according to Intel executives.
Averill PCs, planned for the second half of the year, will be capable of receiving support from a remote technician in the event of a hard-drive failure or hardware problem, said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.
The PCs will also come with hardware support for virtualization software and a dramatic improvement in processor performance compared with Intel's current dual-core desktop PCs, Gelsinger said during a keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum.
With the release of Conroe, a new dual-core processor based on the company's new Core microarchitecture, and the 965 chipset, Intel will have a much better performance story in Averill compared with its older technology for business PCs, said Rob Crooke, vice president and general manager of the business client group.
Averill "is the biggest leap forward for us in end-user capabilities and capabilities for the IT manager that we've seen in five years," Crooke said.
Intel expects a 40 percent improvement in Conroe compared with the company's current Pentium D 900 series processors, Gelsinger said in the morning keynote. That performance, combined with enhancements to the 965 chipset's graphics technology and virtualization, will make Averill PCs capable of supporting Microsoft's Windows Vista when corporations are ready to upgrade, he said.
http://news.com.com/Intel+plans+to+beef ... 46939.html
Intel set to christen biz PC brand
Que sera, sera...
By Stephen Shankland
Published: Monday 24 April 2006
Intel is expected to introduce on Monday a new brand for business-PC technology as the latest plank of its marketing overhaul.
CEO Paul Otellini tipped the company's hand during a conference call earlier this week after Intel announced its latest quarter of disappointing financial results.
Discussing which manufacturing processes the different chips would use, Otellini mentioned Intel's brands: "Centrino and Viiv and the upcoming brand associated with the business desktop we'll talk about on Monday."
An Intel representative declined to comment further on a press conference scheduled for Monday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco. The spokesman said: "We have nothing to add beyond what Paul said in the earnings call." But sources familiar with the company's plans said Intel plans to unveil that third brand name on Monday along with technology that is supposed to make it easier to manage and secure business PCs. To this point, Intel has talked about these capabilities under the code name Averill.
Since the introduction of its Centrino brand for laptop technology in 2003, Intel has channelled its formidable marketing budget into programs that emphasise the technology which Intel brings to PCs and servers beyond the processor. The company calls this move "platformisation", and it has been Otellini's largest project during his brief tenure as CEO.
Centrino is more than just a processor. It's a combination of chips: a mobile chipset, a Pentium M processor and a wi-fi chip that was branded as a package. Intel chose Viiv as the name for its second platform brand to target home entertainment PCs. To carry a Viiv sticker and receive marketing assistance from Intel, PC vendors must build systems with Intel's dual-core processors as well as several other Intel-specified components.
Something similar is expected for business PCs, although Intel is keeping the actual name under close wraps.
IDC analyst Richard Shim said Intel might run into branding wrinkles when some attributes of the business brand become applicable to other PCs. "What happens to [the business brand] a few years down the road when they integrate the components into consumer PCs and notebooks?" Shim said. "Security, manageability, energy efficiency - those aren't things that are just for the desktop."
The business PC brand is not likely to be as widespread as Centrino and Viiv, Shim said. "They don't have to sell it to anybody. They just have to sell it to IT managers. I imagine that what they spend on marketing will be a lot less than what they spent on Centrino since that appealed to a much wider audience," he added.
Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com
http://www.silicon.com
