Intel plans to increase its investment in channel partnerships in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in order to fuel revenues for its business client platforms division, according to one of the company's executives.
The silicon giant is set to seek more and deeper relationships with IT outsourcers over the next year, said Stephanie Hallford, vice president and general manager of Intel's business client platforms group.
"We do work quite a bit with the IT outsourcer channel, and that group is one that you'll see us doubling down on," Hallford told Channel Pro. "That channel is important to us, and I think it's going to become more important to us... What you'll see is closer partnerships, and more of them."
Two areas in which Intel is going to pursue deeper partnerships with VARs and MSPs are security and manageability. The company has been working on software tools like its Active Management Technology, which sit on top of its vPro CPUs and offers enhanced remote management features to IT admins within large organisations.
While this technology may initially appear to clash with competing management services like SolarWinds DameWare, Hallford says that Intel's investment in these products actually offer channel firms a strong opportunity to add value to their offerings.
"Most of our channel partners, those that we are closest with, actually build on top [of Intel's solutions] - because what we offer them is a great deal of work that they don't have to do. But we can then offer them customisation on top, where they drive their own tool utilising some of the baseline features and capabilities."
"That's where we'd like to do more in the future. Endpoint Management Assistant (EMA), for instance; we're trialling that with a number of those partners. They're actually inputting into the creation of EMA and then they're developing their own tools and customisation on top of it."
