Intel Poised to Unveil Business Platform

Seeking to expand its dominance in microprocessors that run computers, Intel Corp. is expected to announce today a new brand of desktop computer “platforms” for business customers.

It would be the third new platform brand in as many years for Intel, the world’s largest chip maker whose processors run more than 80% of the world’s computers.

Intel is shifting from being a primarily chip-making company to one that designs and produces computer platforms, or multiple hardware and software components under particular brand names and marketing campaigns that underscore the technologies’ capabilities.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel launched Centrino, its package of wireless chips and technologies for laptop computers, in 2003 and Viiv, its multimedia package for consumer desktop PCs, in January.

The remaining pillar for PCs is business desktops, said Roger Kay, president of the technology consulting firm Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. “They want to plant a platform in a space where Intel feels one is badly needed,” Kay said.

Executives disclosed last month at an Intel technology conference that the company would introduce a new desktop platform this year codenamed Averill. Chief Executive Paul Otellini last week let slip in a conference call with financial analysts that Intel would talk more about that today.

Otellini and other Intel executives will attend a news conference today in San Francisco.

Intel has said the business PC platform will incorporate new management and stability technology that allows IT departments to access, update and fix PCs remotely, and to make it easier for PCs to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, among other features.

The announcement comes at a time when Intel is losing market share to much smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and is looking for ways to maintain its dominance of the computer processor business.

“For Intel it’s about stickiness, that is, assuring loyalty to the Intel brand by ushering in new features and capabilities associated with the business desktop,” said Shane Rau, a semiconductor analyst at technology market researcher IDC.

“One could see it coming for a long time, although coming after Centrino and Viiv, it seems a little out of order,” Rau said. “If you go by volume, you would think they’d launch business platforms first. It’s the largest volume of processors.”

The third brand will not have a catchy single name but a more generic name such as “Intel Business Systems,” Kay said.

Intel found it expensive to select and support an all-new brand name, and ran into trouble when some potential names meant different things in different languages, said Kay, who was briefed about the new platform by the chip maker but not told its final name.

Intel spent $400 million on marketing the Centrino brand once it debuted in March 2003.