Multi Site Director
The other reason for making an overt gesture towards the SMB sector is in response to what Intel sees as the needs of resellers that service that market. "Many resellers are looking at moving beyond just the hardware model. We're trying to help support the move towards business transformation," says Sheppard.
It's no secret that the margins in reselling hardware are extremely small these days, but it does seem odd for Intel - one of the world's biggest technology hardware manufacturers - to be encouraging the channel to move away from hardware and towards services.
However Intel seems to be merely accepting the inevitable and positioning itself to ensure it doesn't get left behind as the technology and business worlds evolve. "It's harder to differentiate yourself in the hardware business than in services," says Sheppard.
A good example of Intel's diversification is its foray into Software as a Service (SaaS) in the form of Multi Site Director (MSD), which was only launched last April. To find out a bit more about this we speak to Dave Byrne, who heads up MSD in the EMEA region. "This is a product that supports vPro and Centrino Pro [the laptop version of vPro] and enables resellers to offer services to SMB customers."
Resellers under pressure
Byrne echoes his colleague's assertion about the evolution of the SMB reseller. "Reseller business models are increasingly under pressure as hardware average selling prices fall," he says. "So the ability to exploit service opportunities is increasingly important. MSD allows them to take on more outsourced service business.
"The remote management tools enable them to offer a broader service, for example anticipating the need to replace consumables like printer toner. It allows them to pre-empt problems before they arise."
In common with the rest of the software industry, Intel has concluded that the SaaS model is the way forward for MSD. "We're selling hosted access to the product using a SaaS model. It is a monthly rolling contract and we're offering the first month for free to allow resellers to try it out," says Byrne.
It looks like this first free month comes with no strings attached and, even after that, a monthly rolling contract may tempt resellers to dip their toe in the water. "The aim is to give the SMB reseller the maximum opportunity to offer more to their customers and to reduce their barrier to entry to the services market," says Byrne.