News
Intel Backs Off of Appliance Strategy
- By Scott Bekker
- 12/05/2000
Intel Corp. has
apparently had a change of heart about how it will sell and distribute its line
of server appliances.
According to a report by industry analysts IDC, Intel was going to sell its NetStructure
appliances directly to customers and bypass its usual original equipment
manager (OEM) channels. Intel has recently changed course, the report states,
and decided to stick with its OEM partners.
"To avoid directly competing with its
traditional customer base, Intel has brought its NetStructure strategy back in
line with the rest of its business,” writes IDC’s John Humphreys. “Instead of
selling directly to end users, Intel will sell its appliance servers through
the traditional OEM channels.”
IDC says that Intel may have had this
strategy in place from the beginning. "Intel's direct participation in the
market focused attention on the space and brought about a lot more competition,
which in turn has put pressure on server and networking companies to bring
additional appliance products to market. This strategy to bring attention to
this market was almost certainly always in Intel's plan," the report
states.
NetStructure
includes a number of appliances, including caching appliances, management
appliances, hosting appliances, and XML and e-commerce accelerators. - Keith Ward
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.