First came Centrino, then came Viiv and here comes vPro, the latest addition to Intel's platform line-up.
As you probably know already, Intel is shifting its product focus away from individual components like CPUs, motherboards and chipsets, and instead marketing platforms. Centrino - Intel's mobile platform, consisting of a low-power CPU, motherboard/chipset and wireless - has been with us for a couple of years now and has been well received. Viiv hasn't really got going yet, although it does have some interesting features, like turning off without actually turning off. So, what's in store for businesses buying into the new platform?
The way we see it, Intel are covering three main areas with vPro: security, enconomy and manageability; at least that's what their press release suggests. Their Core microarchitecture sits at the heart of vPro, which, Intel say will introduce both performance and power consumption improvements to business PCs.
On the security front, virtualisation technology will allow multiple hardware environments to exist on one machine, allowing viral nasties and other such menaces to be dealt with away from an environment that may put other computers at risk.
Intel's Active Management Technology will enable the easy isolation of computers infected by viruses and alert the BOFHs in the IT of the incursion. Furthermore, it will allow the diagnosis of problems such as device failure, apparently even when the computer is off. Intel haven't said whether 'off' is 'pretend-off', however.
As businesses get their hands on the new platform, we'll see how much easier it is to manage a vPro system, although it's likely that some of the features, like virtualisation, won't be fully leveraged until more applications surface, which they will during the next year or so.
