Intel VP: The Business Game Gets Better With Skylake Plus Windows 10
C.J. Bruno, Intel vice president and Americas general manager, says the company's next generation Skylake processor, combined with Windows 10, is set to deliver an Intel "on steroids" experience for the business market.
Skylake, which is tied tightly to Windows 10, will be front and center as the star of the show at the Intel Solutions Summit in Dallas this week.
"The game gets better with Skylake, which will baptize sixth-generation Intel core processors when they arrive in the market later this year," Bruno told CRN in an exclusive interview before the show. "It's unprecedented to have our freshest processor hand in glove with [Windows] 10. Those don't line up perfectly every generation. It's an amazing opportunity for folks."
[Related: What To Expect From The Intel Solutions Summit]
The Skylake-Windows 10 combination is being embraced by CIOs, said Bruno, who will deliver a keynote Wednesday before several hundred of the company's technology-provider partners. "They're communicating to us that they're really looking for a much swifter adoption of [Windows] 10 in the enterprise than they've experienced with previous OSs," he said. "That is yet another opportunity for all of us, including our Intel technology-provider channel partners, to capitalize on."
Skylake, the sixth-generation successor to Intel's Broadwell architecture, is expected to deliver gains in performance, battery life and power efficiency, according to Intel. The new processor is expected to hit the market later this year, while Windows 10 is expected to be released over the summer.
Martin Smekal, president and CEO of Torrance, Calif.-based Intel partner TabletKiosk, said he is looking at "solid growth rates" of around 35 percent in his own company for the coming year partially because of the Windows 10 release.
In fact, he said, many of his customers have pushed their capital expenditure budgets to the second half of the year, when the new operating system and Skylake platform are set to be released.
"I think it will be a successful new gold catalyst period for the PC industry," said Smekal. "Microsoft has worked very hard to bring Windows 10 to a level where it will be well-received with its customer base."
Microsoft announced last week at its Build Developer Conference that it is aiming for 1 billion devices to be running Windows 10 in three years. Adding fuel to the Windows 10 fire is the fact that many enterprise users did not upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 during the latter's software release, in large part because of frustration with the operating system's touch interface.
"I'm particularly excited about Skylake. … We haven't had a good desktop launch in a couple of years, so that's one really exciting story that we'll hear [at ISS]," said Todd Swank, senior director of product marketing at Equus Computer Systems, an Intel partner based in Minnetonka, Minn. "The PC refresh is something new to talk about with Skylake, mixed with Windows 10, so hopefully we'll see a boost in demand with those two launches coming side by side."
Besides the performance gains, Skylake and Windows 10 will provide a more compelling wireless experience for businesses. Intel will be highlighting system development kits during the summit that will show how the company is creating reference designs with no wires, including wireless docking capabilities and wireless charging. Also on display will be Intel Pro Wireless Display, which lets users connect from a laptop wirelessly to a TV screen or projector.
"It will be really interesting to see what features will be there," said Equus Computers' Swank. "Often, we know that new chipsets will be faster and cooler, but I'm curious to see what other features will be highlighted by Intel at this launch relative to what our customers want from a PC. For resellers and end users, Intel does a great job laying out that story line."
PUBLISHED MAY 5, 2015