Intel Partners Tackle The 3Vs: vPro, VBI And Vista

In attendance were Steve Bohman, vice president of operations at Columbus Micro in Columbus, Ohio; Pat Taylor, president of Proactive Technologies in Carrollton, Texas; Samuel Sanchez, vice president of marketing at Coastline Micro in Irvine, Calif.; and Chris Thorsen, vice president of product development at Paragon Development Systems in Oconomowoc, Wis.

CRN: Can you discuss your plans for vPro?

Thorsen: We're very enthusiastic about vPro and what it has to offer. It's a way to give IT their network back to them. What's really resonating is the remote control and asset inventory. ... What it does is empowers the individual at the service desk to understand what they have prior to even taking that phone call and having a problem. We're evangelizing that information, taking it to clients and they're seeing how this really plays with the management system.

Attending CRN's roundtable: (back, left, then clockwise) Coastline Micro's Samuel Sanchez, Proactive Technologies' Pat Taylor, Paragon Development's Chris Thorsen, Intel's Nick Davison, Columbus Micro's Steve Bohman and Intel's Steve Dallman.

We focus on LANdesk and [Microsoft Systems Management Server]. So really the reach, it's a way to get back the network for IT. The challenge now is it maybe only is 25 [percent] or 33 percent, and it isn't a full part of their estate, so how do you take full advantage of this technology? Our rebuttal to that is to look for if it's multifloor, so you don't have to "sneaker-net" -- run up and down steps. If it's at a campus, deploy it so you don't have to do a truck roll or hit the pavement with a car or a truck to take care of it.

The other piece that's real intriguing is the out-of-band management. We always have wake-up LAN, that little trickle power that you're able to turn the system on. Now when you're rolling out patches, you're rolling out applications; there's a great hit ratio with regard to being successful with the systems that are turned on. Because what will happen is they will hit it with LANdesk, they'll hit it with SMS, but there will be a fallout ratio. With the out-of-band management, the system just has to be plugged in, have a TCP/IP network have your management system have vPro, and you're successfully loading that.

So, it's all of a sudden giving a vision to IT management -- the challenge with doing more with less, and this has given them what they need.

CRN: What is the cost of a typical system with vPro vs. non-vPro?

Thorsen: It's the only systems we sell. Actually, it was [Intel Active Management Technology] 1.0 we started with. I was out at the launch event and I had a CIO that came. It was very interesting. A VP from EDS talked and said that there were benefits that [his company] was seeing and it's very tough to talk to your CEO and refresh $2 million worth of assets that you just spent on for a new platform. ... But she said if you look at the revenue streams, the productivity, what you have and what you're going to benefit from this, all of sudden you can find ROIs in these statements.

The takeaway for the CIO that was there. He said, "What if we were to focus my team really, really well on the first year deploying desktops, the second year on tablet PCs, the third year on notebooks, and the fourth year on entry-level servers?" He said, "I have to take that [idea] back to my team." Well, he's putting two budgets together, 2007, 2008, for refreshing 4,000 systems. So, there's definitely ROI around the standards, and we like to hear those kinds of stories.

Taylor: I think it's more than what it does for the end user, though. I think what Intel has done with vPro is they've created margin opportunities for the channel. The local guy who manages all the law offices in town or takes care of the dentists in his area, those people trust him because he's local and knowledgeable and has some sense of control. Now he can take care of them quicker. He can be more proactive, if you will, as far as taking care of problems on-site. Increase his value to them, and of course they don't know exactly what's happening. You can't shop this kind of service the way you would a machine. There's mystery in that. And, of course, there is margin in mystery.

NEXT: vPro's impact on the bottom line.