Intel's Wired For Management Initiative Continues Momentum

Twenty-Three Companies Test Business Systems and Software at Second Interoperability Event; Products To Join More Than 50 Already Available Worldwide

HILLSBORO, Oregon, Jan. 27, 1998 -- Intel Corporation's industry-led efforts to provide easy-to-manage PCs continued gaining momentum this week. A total of 17 computer hardware system vendors and six software vendors began final testing of their products' management capabilities and interoperability on a total of 89 platforms. For the first time, mobile PCs and servers were tested, along with desktop PCs, during the event hosted by Intel. Systems tested have been designed according to the Wired for Management (WfM) Baseline Specification.

Many of the systems and management applications tested this week are expected to be available in coming months. Participating vendors include: Acer and Acer America, AST Research, Compaq, Computer Associates, Dell Corporation, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel Corporation, Lanworks Technologies, Micron, Packard Bell NEC, Pionex Technologies, Platinum Technology, Quantex, Seanix Technology Corp., Tivoli Systems and Toshiba.

"The Wired for Management Initiative and this event represent the PC industry at its best, delivering cross-platform management to information technology managers," said Will Swope, vice president, Business Platform Group, Intel Corporation. "The momentum is clear with strong participation in this week's event, and most importantly, more than 20 OEMs have announced Wired for Management-capable desktop or mobile systems in the last two quarters."

New to this week's testing event are mobile PCs. The WfM Baseline includes instrumentation capabilities specific to mobile devices, allowing for remote monitoring of batteries, PC cards and docking stations. In addition, the instrumentation recognizes the mobile environment as a dynamic one, allowing IT managers to recognize changes in the environment, such as insertion of a PC card or plugging the mobile PC into a docking station.

AST, Dell, IBM, and Toshiba have announced mobile systems implementing the Wired for Management Baseline Specification. Several other OEMs that are developing mobile PCs attended the interoperability event to continue preparing their Wired for Management-enabled systems for production.

Net PC or Wired for Management-enabled systems from Acer, AST, Compaq, Dell, Founder, Fujitsu, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Micron, NEC, Packard Bell-NEC Japan, Pionex Technologies, Quantex, Seanix, Toshiba, Unisys, Zenith Data Systems and Mitsubishi Electronics PC Division are already available.

Also supporting the Wired for Management Initiative, Computer Associates International is shipping its CA Unicenter* product that supports Wired for Management Baseline Specification capabilities. Tivoli Systems recently announced it will support Wired for Management through its TME* and NetView* management applications. Platinum Technology will support the Wired for Management Initiative through its development and marketing alliance with Intel for LANDesk products.

Intel's LANDesk Client Manager v3.1 fully supports the management capabilities of the Wired for Management Baseline Specification for desktop and mobile PCs. LANDesk Configuration Manager v.1.5 allows network managers to schedule automatic, after-hours, remote configuration changes and software distribution for Net PCs and other managed PCs using the Wired for Management Baseline Specification.

About Wired for Management Co-developed by Intel and others in the PC industry, the Wired for Management and Net PC System Design Guidelines describe a baseline level of manageability that will help ensure networked PCs and management applications are interoperable. Capabilities enabled by these specifications allow IT managers to automatically and remotely deploy, configure, monitor, service and repair systems 24 hours a day, resulting in lower support costs and higher user productivity.

Industry analysts have recognized the PC industry's innovations in systems manageability and reductions in total cost of ownership. The Gartner Group's recently released Total Cost of PC Ownership report indicated that Net PCs with Microsoft's Zero Administration Kit for Windows* in TaskStation mode resulted in the lowest annual total cost of ownership in comparison with network computers, Windows terminals and a typical PC running the Windows 95 operating system.

More information about the Wired for Management Initiative, or the Net PC is available at www.intel.com/managedpc.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.