What's On The Minds Of Intel's Closest System Builders?

System builders in attendance were Steve Bohman, vice president of operations at Columbus Micro, Columbus, Ohio; Samuel Sanchez, vice president of marketing at Coastline Micro, Irvine, Calif.; Pat Taylor, president of Proactive Technologies, Carrollton, Texas; and Chris Thorsen, vice president of product development at Paragon Development Systems, Oconomowoc, Wis. Also present were Steve Dallman, general manager of Intel's reseller channel organization; Nick Davison, director of Intel North American channel sales and marketing; Heather Clancy, editor of CRN; and Paula Rooney, CRN senior writer.

ON THE VPRO OPPORTUNITY:
CHRIS THORSEN: We're very enthusiastic about vPro and what it has to offer. It's a way to give IT their network back. What's really resonating is the remote control and asset inventory. What it does is empower 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.

PAT 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. [For] the local guy who manages all the law offices in town or takes care of the dentists in his area 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. 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.

SAMUEL SANCHEZ: We're embracing vPro aggressively. It's opening up new doors for us, something more to talk about, especially with companies like POS [solution providers]. They spend a lot of money writing those specific software packages that tie the kiosks to the end user. And the thing that really annoys them most is that they have to refresh their applications maybe once every year. With the vPro and the 965 [chipset] series, it's got longevity. It's got at least two years, and they love it. Plus, [they like] the fact that they can tie into these kiosks anywhere in the world, which allows them to be a little more aggressive in deploying them anywhere, really. So, they really like that aspect of it.

In education, [selling vPro] is a little tricky. We treat our education accounts, because we do school districts, as enterprise. And a lot of them already have Trend Micro or some management software in there already. So with the help of Intel, we're trying to go out and say, 'You don't need to go out and buy all of this management software. We want to help you work this into your new refresh of systems.' So Intel is helping us get these systems into existing environments without having to have them spend any more money on additional licenses, refreshing their licenses, their management systems and so on. That's pretty critical, and we really appreciate that.

STEVE BOHMAN: At most [vPro is] a $20 premium because all it is is hardware on the board. And let me clarify, that's $20 over a value-priced motherboard. That's not $20 over what a lot of schools were buying last year. It's the same price as what they were buying last year. It's more value at the same price. If you're looking at cheap, it's a $20 premium.

Next: Extending vPro to servers, mobile units