Memo From Intel to MSPs: BYOD Is Unavoidable, Don’t Ignore It
The BYOD (bring your own device) debate is over. MSPs have no choice but to support BYOD or they will be hopelessly left behind, according to Dan Russell, director of marketing for Intel's the Business Client Computing Division. "Winners are created during transitions," said Russell. "Those who change with this transition will be the winners."
The BYOD (bring your own device) debate is over. MSPs have no choice but to support BYOD or they will be hopelessly left behind, according to Dan Russell, director of marketing for Intel’s the Business Client Computing Division. “Winners are created during transitions,” said Russell. “Those who change with this transition will be the winners.”
Addressing the Kaseya Connect user conference in Las Vegas, Russell also said:
- Almost 50 percent of U.S. small businesses will spend $6.8 billion on remote managed services, according to AMI, note Russell.
- So why Intel? “We really don’t think of ourselves as a chip company. We’re on a 20-year transition to becoming a services, software and hardware company. It takes time.”
- 25 percent of Intel employees are software employees. “Even before McAfee, we were at 20 percent in terms of our employees focused on software.”
- Russell mentioned Intel vPro as a prime opportunity for MSPs. “We launched it in 2006; we’re still around and that’s good news. The value proposition is still there. I think vPro is finally ready to hit the big time.”
- Intel is announcing vPro 2.0 — not necessarily the official name — with deeper security within a couple of weeks.
- The Windows 8-UltraBook pitch toward the end of the presentation caught my attention. No big surprises, but a reminder that UltraBooks will benefit when Windows 8 arrives.
Overall, Intel is striving to help MSPs managed complexity and lower costs, Russell told attendees.
BYoD and vPro do not mix. 🙂
Devon,
I respectfully disagree. Stay tuned for next-generation Business Ultrabooks with vPro. Some early thoughts….
-jp
VAR’s trying to sell business-class machines to people is nothing new.
From my understanding, BYoD is letting the Users bring in whatever devices they want. Their own, _consumer-level_ devices they bought because it’s the colour they like (or whatever), and was a good deal at Best Buy (or alike).
Users don’t want to spend (significant) cash on features that they only need for work, especially that they don’t see/understand the benefit to.
They need it explained to them (by someone like a VAR), and shown to them that it has value outside of the workplace. But VARs aren’t where the average user goes (else there’d still be lots of hardware VARs making tons of money), and the $9/hr sales kid at the Big Box store isn’t going to care what he sells them.
Once you have VARs in place, the company is dictating the feature set, and probably footing the extra expense of the more expensive, business-class machines. Then we’re back to company-dictated, company-funded, business-class devices. How is that BYoD?