Product opportunities
Pearson handed over to the GM of Intel's worldwide reseller channel - Steve Dallman (pictured below) - who stressed that the channel has been quickest to adopt new technology like Nehalem and quad core processors than the big OEMs.
He acknowledged that the Intel reseller channel is dominated by the desktop form factor, but said that Intel is looking at how to grow the mobile channel. There weren't too many specifics about how it would go about this, but Dallman said he expects some new ‘thin and light' notebook SKUs to be made available first through the channel.
Dallman mentioned that a mainstream variant of Nehalem - codenamed Lynnfield - is expected in the latter part of Q3. "We're going to take a Nehalem CPU and move it into the mainstream, at new price points," said Dallman. "Even more importantly, we're going to reduce the BOM (bill of materials) of the whole system."
It looks like Intel is putting quite a lot of emphasis on its ‘thin and light' notebook offering and thinks this will present opportunities for resellers. With notebooks having become so commoditised, especially at the entry level, a key way for smaller system builders to differentiate themselves is through style, as opposed to spec, and the thin and light form factor could well be the best place to do this.
Intel's aim was to encourage its premier partners (the top 500) at this event. It wanted to stress that we're all in this recession together and to highlight some of the alternative opportunities out there if traditional channel opportunities are failing to deliver.
HEXUS was able to interview several Intel execs, including Pearson and Dallman, in front of the TV cameras at ISS 09. We will be publishing them soon, so watch this space.
