Dell says no to Intel's vPro

From a Intel champion, Dell has suddenly transformed itself into a champion of open standards. The computer maker wants Intel to open up its vPro desktop management platform to the extend that AMD should be able to sell vPro systems and make enhancements to the technology.

Dell for years was accused of having an intimate love affair with Intel, but that affair appears to have ended abruptly.

The computer maker on Wednesday will start selling its first AMD powered desktop system, marking the last product line to switch over to AMD chips.

08 Nov 2006

But the flat out refusal to dance to Intel's tune in the enterprise desktop market is far more remarkable than a single AMD system.

Dell's customers essentially are on to Intel and the fact that its vPro technology is essentially a vendor lock-in. AMD after all won't be able to create vPro systems. A company standardizing on vPro by default is also standardizing on Intel.

The world, and especially the enterprise world, has gotten burnt by proprietary standard a few times to often. Instead of joining the Intel parade, the system vendor will be looking at open standards. Unless of course its customers start demanding that they adopt vPro after all.

Intel chief Paul Otellini at the vPro launch last April

technorati tags: dell, vpro, intel, active+management, technology

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Customers do not care about AMD as much as Dell does. The processor is price / performance component and overall PC managebility is more important to the customer decision makers who sign the checks than the actual processor that is used. In reality, Dell's relunctance to implement the standard simply disallows Intel to ship more product, which disallows price decreases and the over all lower price \ performance point customers are seeking.

Posted by: Jon Ruiz 09 May 2007

Dell's refusal may cause enterprise-level clients to rethink vendor strategies...

Posted by: jtb 15 Nov 2006

Thanks for calling out Dell's focus on open standards. You're spot on in that we do champion open standards. However, it has always been our strategy to drive standardization in the marketplace--it's definitely not a recent occurrence. Also wanted to clarify a couple other things in the post. The OptiPlex 740 is actually our first corporate desktop with AMD processor options. We launched AMD-based Dimension consumer desktops in September. Second is our view on standardization. We don't focus on a specific partner or processor. It's about the benefits of standards and rallying partners like Intel and industry organizations like the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) around them. VPro has promise and we share Intel's vision for energy-efficiency, better security and improved manageability for IT. The new OptiPlex products, which feature our new Dell Client Manager, are great examples of Dell's vision. Based on customer feedback, we centralized our client management tools into a single console, the Dell Client Manager, which allows customers to remotely manage and control a system even if it's turned off. Do we prefer open standards? You bet, the Dell Client Manager is based on standards. We'll continue to work with our partners, Intel included, on delivering standards-based solutions that reduce complexity for IT managers. Why? So they can focus on higher-value activities: like growing the bottom line.

Posted by: LiemAtDell 08 Nov 2006

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