Intel: Reorg Won't Change Day-To-Day Channel Operations

Intel's sweeping corporatewide reorganization will affect its day-to-day operations with the channel marginally, but could provide more opportunities for system builders and VARs to benefit from the company's new platform-level focus, executives of the chipmaker said.

"My organization that faces [the channel] is unchanged," said Steve Dallman, Intel's director of distribution and channel sales and marketing. "The programs are stable, the commitment is stable. We have more funding this year than last year."

Among the noteworthy pieces of Intel's reorganization, announced Monday, was the creation of a Channel Products Group headed by Intel Vice President Bill Siu. The creation of the new business unit is aimed at combining resources at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that will help its channels build and deliver products to customers based on market-by-market needs.

Dallman said he will continue to report to both Sophia Chew, Intel's vice president of sales and marketing and general manager of its channel group, and to Tom Kilroy, president of Intel America. Chew, for her part, will now report to both Siu and Anand Chandrasekher, who Intel named as director of its Sales and Marketing Group Monday as part of the shuffle.

"This has been in the planning stages for a long time," Dallman said. "We started a big debate last October. Paul [Otellini, Intel's president and COO], has been talking about platforms for a long time."

A key to the decision to reorganize into five business units -- The Mobility Group; The Digital Enterprise Group; The Digital Home Group, The Digital Health Group; and the Channel Products Group -- was aimed at providing the full breadth of Intel's resources to each strategic line of operations, Dallman said. For example, each group would now have access to its own chipset engineering resources where mobile and digital enterprise organizations might have had to share them previously.

Early reaction to Intel's moves was largely positive. Analysts at Citigroup Smith Barney, New York, for example, said the moves back the company's "platform approach" to its business.

"The company's success with the Centrino platform is a proven example of the efficacy of the platform approach and should serve as a model for the newly formed divisions," said the analysts.

The reorganization kicks off what is expected to be an aggressive 2005 by Intel. On Wednesday, Intel is slated to formally launch its Sonoma mobile processor -- as a sort of next-generation Centrino mobile platform. Later this year, the company is scheduled to launch a 64-bit-enabled desktop and begin rolling out dual-core processors. To assist the channel with these rollouts, the company is set to increase its training efforts, among other actions.

Dallman and Frank Raimondi, Intel's strategic channel alliances manager, said Intel would, among other activities, conduct a 25-city platform technical solution training session for the channel on Sonoma and mobile platforms. Some 900 integrators are expected to take part in the initiative, slated to begin Feb. 15, they said.