Intel Taps Partners to Build Solution Blueprints

The Intel Solution Blueprints, which will be sold by Intel's system integrator partners, document existing solutions based on Intel-based server infrastructures that have been tested or previously deployed by an Intel partner for a customer. They are written much like a white paper targeted to CTOs, showing them a specific business problem, the technology solution that was created to solve it, as well as the different companies that cooperated to build the solution.

The idea behind the program is that Intel and its partners can market the solutions and existing partnerships to win business deals with other clients who might have similar needs.

"In the server space and in dealing with solution stacks, it's a bunch of moving parts, so you might have 55 different applications that are all working together and have to be finely tuned in terms of putting a 'solution' together," says Deborah Conrad, vice president and general manager of Intel's solution market development group.

The result, says the company, is a proven, cost-effective solution that can be implemented quickly and customized to fit a specific business need. "You take a solution stack from one customer and start deploying it elsewhere to get other business around it," she says, estimating that about 75 or 80 percent of any given solution may be repeatable, with the remainder being custom work that is unique to that particular deployment.

The blueprints will also list specific deployment guidelines, including application software, middleware, operating systems, platform and hardware specifications, including recommendations for specific processors like Intel's Xeon or Itanium families.

"Obviously from our standpoint, the more applications that run on our servers and the easier they are to deploy, the better," says Conrad. "We're all about volume."

Intel, which has been working on the blueprint program for over a year, has already forged relationships with a variety of integrators, solution providers and hardware and software companies, including BEA, Cap Gemini, Compaq, Deloitte Consulting, Dimension Data, EDS, Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, i2, ISID, Magic Maps, Microsoft, MSC.Software, Pivotal, Plumtree, Plural, PWC Consulting, Questra, SAS, Scient, Siemens Business Services, Silverline, Speechworks, Stellcom, Triaton and Xcelerate.

And while Intel already has about 23 blueprints in place from existing engagements, the company expects to have at least 100 created by the end of the year, with the ultimate goal being several hundred different blueprints for a variety of verticals, starting with financial services, manufacturing, energy, retail, government and digital media. While most of the early blueprints will be geared to Global 1000 clients, the long-term plan is to expand the program into other areas like small and midsize business.

For Intel, the strength of the blueprint program is that it represents real business relationships and proven solutions, unlike come companies that use lab scenarios as proof-of-concept, says Conrad.

"The program is about the whole process of documenting and verifying and the business relationship that then identifies a go-to-market plan," she says. "It's not a piece of collateral. There is a real business relationship that has been formed that the piece of collateral represents that says, 'Let's go find more of these customers.'"

Before a blueprint is crafted, it is tested and tuned at either the solution provider's facility or in one the Intel e-Business labs co-located at OEM and solution integrator sites.

Conrad says the blueprint program is the next logical step in Intel's strategy of leveraging partnerships to go-to-market.

"This is a very interesting transition point we find ourselves in, because over the last two years we have been doing the heavy lifting in getting solutions to market," she says. "It took a tremendous amount of engineering and market development and very high-touch relationships with end customers as well as with all the partners. Now we have enough momentum where we feel we can do it on a much broader scale."