Intel Vaults Into Virtualization Arena

Intel can't quite shake the "second-to-market" stigma. As the company this week rolls out its first chips that use hardware-based virtualization technology, talk among solution providers is as much about Intel's need to get in front of its competitors as it is about the new features.

The Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker said the new Pentium 4 672 and 662 processors will incorporate hardware support for virtualization. Intel's technology runs the virtual machine monitor in hardware so that virtualization will operate faster and more reliably than a software-only solution, said Chad Taggard, director of advanced technology marketing.

In the United States, Lenovo is the only top-tier vendor immediately supporting the new chips in desktop systems. Taggard said many other PC makers are waiting until Intel ships the technology in its dual-core desktop CPUs with virtualization, slated for early next year.

Though the industry clearly has yet to embrace the new chips, solution providers have said Intel needs to push these kinds of technologies out in front of Advanced Micro Devices to demonstrate it is still a market leader. AMD is slated to unveil products based on its own virtualization technology early in 2006.

Gautam Shah, CEO of Colfax International, a Santa Clara system builder, said he will tout the chips in his own systems because being first to market with new technologies gives his small company an edge. But he also noted that Intel is refreshing its product cycles more quickly to compete more effectively. "They definitely can not afford to be second [to market] anymore," he said.

Virtualization in desktops and servers is a hot button for solution providers. On the desktop side, they see opportunities to partition desktops in ways that will help improve securitysuch as setting up a safe IT-approved desktop space and another for an employee's personal useas well as allow employees to run multiple operating systems on one system.

Taggard noted that a partition also can be set up by solution providers to help manage a customer's desktops. "They can have access to each machine at any time of the day and can run virus scanning and firewalls," he said.

VMware, Microsoft and Xen support Intel's virtualization technology. The 3.8GHz 672 is priced at $605, and the 3.6GHz 662 is priced at $401 in low quantities.