Looking Inside Intel

Shirley Turner kept her word. Intel’s director of North American channels marketing gave The VAR Guy a call right on schedule Tuesday–despite the fact that Intel was set to unveil a major restructuring in less than two hours.

As expected, Intel late Tuesday announced plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs. These are humbling times for the chip giant, which vastly underestimated AMD’s R&D and marketing efforts.

But The VAR Guy’s conversation with Turner wasn’t about Intel downsizing or missed opportunities. Instead, the chat focused on partnerships and the evolving channel. Intel revamped its channel program in July, offering the Technology Partner designation to traditional solution providers, and the Systems Builders designation for PC builders that leverage Intel technology. You’ll find a quick recap of the program over at VARBusiness.

Turner’s top priority for the rest of 2006 is evangelizing the benefits of Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor. Instead of focusing on “speeds and feeds,” she’s striving to educate partners about Intel Virtualization, Active Management Technology and Centrino mobile technology.

And what about 2007? Turner declined to speculate much about next year. Clearly the dust from Intel’s restructuring needs to settle before Turner and other Intel managers can strategize for next year. Still, she’s hopeful that Core 2 Duo processors coupled with Windows Vista will spark mass industry upgrades.

Not that Intel is betting the farm on Windows. The chip giant’s own site for resellers is loaded with Linux sales strategies.

As Red Herring recently noted,Wintel’s dominance is no more. There’s healthy competition in the systems market. Intel vs. AMD. Linux for Windows. Dell vs. Everyone. How refreshing.