Intel Unveils Specialty Designation For Partners Targeting High-Performance Computing

Intel aims to help its technology provider partners expand their customer base and resources in the high-performance computing space through new specialty designation benefits.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company unveiled the HPC data center specialty designations at XChange 2015, which is hosted by CRN publisher The Channel Company.

"We're trying to give [partners] a competitive advantage," said Todd Garrigues, Intel's North America channel director, in an XChange presentation. "As I've mentioned, we have plenty of HPC experts at Intel, and part of my job is to bring that to the channel and make it available to you in a such a way you can actually use it."

[Related Video: Intel Offers New Partner Designation, Benefits Around HPC]

The new HPC data center specialty designations will be launched in the third quarter of 2015, according to Intel. The HPC designation is the latest round of specialty benefits that Intel has offered for its North American partner base. In May, the company rolled out specialty benefits for the Internet of Things retail and education verticals.

As part of the specialty designation, partners will be able to tap into the expertise of Intel HPC specialists, receive the HPC data center specialty designation, and gain access to Intel HPC resources and case studies, as well as co-marketing opportunities.

To be eligible for the specialty designation, partners must be part of Intel's Gold or Platinum tier with a minimum of $200,000 of their data center portfolio coming through Intel Authorized Distributors, and a minimum of one Intel architecture white-box HPC solution offer published on Solution Finder, Intel's partner-based solution sharing portal.

In addition, eligible partners must have a minimum of one verified HPC deployment with 12 nodes and achieve 12 Intel Technical Computing training credits.

The requirements for HPC specialty benefits are lengthy, but partners say the branding prestige of the HPC data center specialty designation is critical to gaining trust from customers.

Gautam Shah, CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Intel Platinum partner Colfax International, said the designation would help his company gain an edge to attract new customers.

"Intel is such a big company that everyone in the channel has a generic badge, and there is no specific badge showing what you specialize in," he said. "These designations show that you have a skill set that Intel has recognized. Having that specialty badge is a good way to promote our skills and expand our customer base."

For newer Intel partners who would like to build a client base through HPC data center solutions, the new specialty designation is a good aspiration, Colfax's Shah said.

In addition to the HPC designations, Garrigues discussed Intel's overall goals for the second half of the year to grow and innovate in both its mobile and PC business through creating new experiences, as well as desktop innovation through new products such as Intel's Compute Stick.

"We are very excited about our business in the channel," said Garrigues. "We've seen tremendous growth so far and we're looking forward to the second half of the year."

PUBLISHED AUG. 11, 2015