Intel bets on open source future

Gammage sees this trend as the motivator behind Intel's recent moves to begin treating Linux on a par with Windows where it comes to equipment makers. For example, the chipmaker recently centralised its Linux efforts into the Linux Program Office, part of the Software and Solutions Group, the same division that coordinates Intel's contributions to other open source projects. Intel also recently hired Dirk Hohndel, a well-known figure in the Linux world, as director of its Linux and open source strategy.

On the sales channel side, Intel recently introduced a kit designed to make it easier for manufacturers to put together Linux desktop systems. The Quick Start Kit for Linux mirrors similar efforts that have long been in place for Windows, and is aimed at China, India, Latin America and other emerging markets.

The Software and Solutions Group's Channel Software Operation, which is behind the Linux kit, has a Linux expert of its own in the form of Danese Cooper. In March Cooper was hired away from Sun, where she had served as the company's resident Linux advocate; she is now director of open source strategy for the Channel Software Operation.

Intel and industry observers stress that such moves aren't a radical shift for Intel — rather, they're a continuation of Intel's long-standing relationship with the open source community. And they don't mean Intel is showing any special preference for Linux, either — it's all about sales. "This is all in the context of Intel's need to sell as much hardware as possible," Gammage says.

New technologies
Software has always been important to Intel, but it is right at the core of Intel's latest big strategies, its shift away from components toward platforms, making computers easier to manage and virtualisation. The success of these strategies is a life-or-death matter for Intel — in an age of constantly dropping prices and saturated markets, it is relying on these new directions to keep buyers interested.

Intel announced in the first part of this year it would switch its emphasis from individual chips to platforms such as Centrino, the integrated mobile computing set of chips. The move is significant for Intel, which for years relied on raw clock-speed figures to sell its processors. This so-called "platformisation" shifts the sales strategy away from ever-increasing performance to how well integrated and easy to use the system is — something particularly important in mobile computing, where battery life and system set-up are big issues. And that integration depends on software.

An integrated hardware platform makes things more complex for software developers, because instead of interacting directly with a chip they're interacting with the embedded software that controls the platform. This extra level of complexity has made Intel's own software efforts more important, since Intel needs to work with software makers more actively to ensure that there's broad support for the hardware features.

With Centrino, for example, Intel took a more active role in developing Linux drivers than it ever had before, collaborating with open source developers and publishing the Centrino Wi-Fi drivers under an open source licence. Though the Linux drivers were completed long after Windows drivers had arrived, the move showed Intel was willing to cooperate.

Previously, open source developers had been left to do the detective work themselves. Such collaboration made sense from a business point of view, because it meant those running Linux laptops could be added to Windows users as potential Centrino customers.

The first of the new generation of platforms is the excitingly named Professional Business Platform (PBP), announced in May, which introduces two technologies that are key to Intel's future: Active Management Technology and VT. Like Centrino, PBP is a blueprint for a PC based on a bundle of Intel chips that have been pre-tested to work together, the idea being to eliminate any potential incompatibilities and highlight the way the bundle works as a whole, rather than the performance of individual parts.