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New Direction For Intel
Mon, 24 Apr 2006
Intel Corp. is expected on Monday to announce plans to introduce a new brand for a line of business products designed to make it easier for companies to manage and maintain fleets of personal computers, the New York Times said.

Intel spokesperson, Scott McLaughlin, says the enterprise announcement will include a number of industry partners including security vendor, Symantec. He declined to comment further.

According to observers, Intel plans to wrap a number of important enterprise features into the new brand, much in the way that it associated wireless laptop computing with its Centrino brand.

"The three things they're going to focus on are security, manageability and energy efficiency," senior research analyst with IDC, Richard Shim, says.

According to Shim, Intel hopes investing in a new brand will revitalise growth in the enterprise desktop market, which is expected to be flat in Europe and the US this year.

"The desktop PC needs a little love, so this other platform will help to shine a little light on this segment," he added.

According to the latest IDC figures worldwide enterprise desktop shipments grew 7.9 per cent in 2005, totalling 84 million units. In 2006 that number is expected to rise by another 6.1 per cent, to pass 89 million units.

Intel hopes to reproduce the success of its Centrino platform with the new brand, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64.

"When Intel looks at Centrino the general conclusion is, 'Boy, that was a home run.' They spent US$300 million advertising the brand and 12 months later everybody thought Intel invented wireless," he said. "They're hoping that they can recreate that here."