SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 14, 2005 – Delivering the industry’s first
hardware virtualization support for desktop PCs, Intel Corporation
debuted new processors today that offer businesses improved
manageability and bolstered security.
Virtualization allows a platform to run multiple operating systems
or applications in independent partitions or “containers” that can be
tailored for specific needs such as IT management services and
protecting networked assets.
“With innovations such as Intel Virtualization Technology built-in,
Intel is at the forefront of tackling some of the biggest IT challenges
facing businesses today,” said Robert B. Crooke, vice president and
general manager of Intel’s Business Client Group. “Analysts believe
virtualization is one of the most disruptive technologies to the PC in
a decade, and our technology combined with our industry enabling
efforts are going to help bring this into the mainstream.**”
With virtualization support, businesses can maintain full control of
a portion of a PC to run security or management services without
interrupting the end-user or allowing them to easily tamper with
critical applications. Businesses can better protect themselves from
malicious code or viruses by filtering network traffic through a
separate IT partition before it reaches the user.
Configuring multiple partitions on a PC improves manageability by
providing support for legacy applications while testing and adopting
new operating environments.
Intel Pentium 4 processor-based desktop PCs are being offered by
Acer, Founder, Lenovo and TongFang. Lenovo is now offering Intel
Virtualization Technology-based pilot systems to select customers, and
broad support for desktop PC solutions from several other system
manufacturers is expected in the first quarter of 2006. In addition,
leading industry virtualization solution providers including VMware,
Microsoft and Xen have joined Intel in support of Intel Virtualization
Technology on future Intel processor-based PCs and servers.
Further evolving “built-in” world-class IT security and
manageability capabilities for businesses, Intel will deliver the
second phase of another premier platform innovation – Intel Active
Management Technology – together with virtualization support on its
dual-core Intel Professional Business Platform, codenamed Averill,
later in 2006. Virtualization capabilities will also be extended to
notebook PCs, and the company will first support this through Intel
Centrino mobile technology-based platforms in 2006.
Businesses are also benefiting from virtualization for their server
applications primarily through enhanced functionality and workload
support. Intel announced last week that it is shipping Intel Xeon
processors MP with hardware-enabled support for Intel
Virtualization Technology. The company will begin shipping this same
technology on Intel Itanium processor-based platforms
in mid-2006.
The benefits of virtualization can also extend to home and
entertainment activities. In the future, home PC users will be able to
create virtual “partitions” isolating several user environments such as
dedicated Web browsing resources, productivity software applications,
personal video recorders and offering service providers access for
remote diagnosis and repairs.
Pricing and Availability
Desktop PCs based on the Intel Pentium 4 processor 672 and 662
processors with Intel Virtualization Technology are available today on
systems being offered by Acer, Founder, Lenovo and TongFang. The Intel
Pentium 4 processor 672 and 662 are priced at $605 and $401
respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities.
Source: Intel Press Release
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