Intel "Enterprises" the PC

Their message was a little more diffuse. Rather than hyping a specific product, they came to add some perspective to their new "platformization" strategy. Under that approach, Intel has sought to emphasize nonprocessor technologies, such as faster memories and I/O interconnects. The idea is that such features will drive overall increases in system performance beyond what can be accomplished simply by boosting the speed of the processor.

The fact that processor clock-speed increases have pretty much topped out has been a big impetus for the plan.

However, Intel is also engaging in a smart public-relations maneuver to shift the discussion away from the CPU -- an area where AMD's 64-bit Athlon and Opteron processors have outshone Intel's Pentium and Xeon chips in 2004.

As Frank Spindler, vice president of Intel's corporate technology group, put it in our meeting: "The processor is incredibly important, but it's not the only thing. If we were a processor-only vendor, we wouldn't be able to focus on all these other things," such as chipsets, communications components and graphics engines.

The new leg of Intel's platformization plan is something it's calling its "T's" strategy. The "T," for technology, is supposed to point to Intel's tetrad of hyperthreading, LaGrande, Vanderpool and active-management features.

Hyperthreading, which enables one physical processor to behave like two or more virtual CPUs, is already with us and will grow in importance as multicore becomes ascendant.

LaGrande will fold security protection directly into Intel's processor, chipset and platform hardware. It will be available on desktop PCs once Microsoft releases its Longhorn operating system in 2006 or '07; that OS is needed because it'll have software hooks to access LaGrande's features.

Vanderpool is a hardware-assisted implementation of virtualization. Set to debut on Xeon and Pentium 4 in 2006, it will essentially update hyperthreading for the multicore age. (On the server side, Vanderpool will appear in Itanium in 2005.)

Intel's active-management technology is perhaps the sleeper of the four. It embeds hardware support for remote systems management. That will be a boon for the many ISVs jumping on the asset-management bandwagon, where monitoring and software updates for vast networks are handled from centralized locations.

For VARs, there's important hidden news behind what at first glance seems to be a less than scintillating collection of incremental improvements. Consider that Intel's efforts to enhance the broader platform (as opposed to just the processor) will turn the PC from its current incarnation as a still relatively immature client into a heavyweight computing system with many of the characteristics of an old-line enterprise box.

After all, where else are virtualization, remote access and heavy-duty security commonplace today if not in enterprise-class machines? Clearly, what Intel calls the platformization of the PC -- a term most resellers can't get excited about -- is a misnomer. The correct -- and equally tongue-tying -- term is the "enterprization" of the PC.

But if standalone PCs remain a low-margin losers for VARs, models with more enterprise-like characteristics should offer some serious opportunities for installation and services income. Is this a pipe dream, like so many past carrots the PC industry has dangled in front of resellers? Maybe not.

Intel's Spindler says his objective is to make sure the channel understands the coming shift. "The way they're selling the PC platform will change," he says. Features like remote manageability will open up more consulting business, he believes.

"There will be new support opportunities in terms of how to utilize this," Spindler adds.

Combine this stuff with an upgrade cycle that's increasingly driven by customers' desire to get their hands on 64-bit machines, and maybe we've got a prescription for better times ahead.