Monday, April 24, 2006

Intel launches 'vPro' - for businesses.

Intel has just launched another brand and another platform. Alongside Centrino for laptops and Viiv for entertainment devices, Ingtel has just launched the latest wheez/brand/platformy thing called vPro.

You can't help wondering whether this proliferation of platforms and brands will help Intel or confuse us all so much that we resort to good ol' single chip branded PC's with AMD on them.

In the mean time though Intel assure us that their platform strategy is better for users and PC makers (I wish I knew why?). And VPro will make the management and security of corporate PC's more straight forward. Sounds good so far.

Intel said vPro includes an updated version of a feature called Intel Active Management Technology that can perform management tasks remotely, such as helping a PC recover from a so-called "blue-screen" system crash. Another feature is Intel Virtualization Technology, which partitions a computer into secure zones and user-controlled sections.

Intel plans to work with software vendors, including Symantec, to load special protection programs into the chip that can filter out packets of data that have been corrupted by viruses.

Sounds good for Symantec, Intel and the corporate help desk, but maybe less good for Microsoft who are trying to bake PC management and security into Vista - presuming that they launch it some time soon.

No comments: