Innovate to beat downturn, says Intel

MUMBAI, INDIA: The downturn has not only applied breaks to businesses but it has also made many companies turn away from embracing newer technologies and innovations.

According to Intel's senior vice president and general manager – Digital Enterprise Group, Patrick Gelsinger, most governments have released stimulus packages and bailed out businesses and such funds should be wisely invested in technologies which bring in more efficiency and productivity.

“During the downturn enterprises need to drive up innovation and new technologies that allow to improve efficiency and helps to overcome the economic slowdown. And investments in IT shouldn't be seen as an expense but should be seen as an business enabler,” said Gelsinger.

On the sidelines of a media briefing, Gelsinger shared his views about Intel's strategy, investment in technology, the economic scenario along with the company's latest technologies and products.

Giving the Intel's example, he explained how the company has invested about US$ 7 billion in next-generation technology towards developing products on 32nm silicon technology platform.

“Intel's strategy is based on the company co-founder Gordon Moore and his predications, popularly called as Moore's Law that says the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years,” said Gelsinger.

He suggested enterprises need to invest smartly in new PCs such that the maintenance cost reduces, efficiency improves and lowers security incidents. He pointed out that Intel's Core2 Duo Processor and vPro Technology can help bring about potential savings against virus downtime, energy efficiency and enhance productivity.

Further, Gelsinger claimed that the return on investment in Intel's vPro technology-based PCs is about 10 months, while desktops and notebook systems with the new Intel Core2 Duo processor offer a 17 month recoup investment.

Gelsinger stressed on investments in managed clients such as mobile PC, laptops and notebooks as it reduces power consumption by 26 times over desktops and added the Wipro's study states that about 65 per cent small businesses reported that traveling staffs can be more productive with a notebooks.

Also, he added that notebooks with Intel vPro technology has built in manageability and proactive security with energy efficiency.

While data centers involve huge investments in terms of hardware, power and maintenance costs, Gelsinger discussed how the data center technology is moving from server consolidation towards 'private cloud', which is highly automated, scalable with benefits of on-demand, energy efficient and virtualized networks.

However, he viewed that despite the challenging economic scenario, there's an unprecedented opportunity to refresh older servers with Intel Xeon processors that delivers up to nine time performance per server and also helps to consolidate.

The Xeon processors offer 90 per cent lower operating costs with an estimated return on investment time of eight months, added Gelsinger.

Overall, Gelsinger observed that refreshment cycles need to be shorter as it allow reduction in operational costs or expenses in terms of maintenance and downtime/loss for businesses. He concluded IT refreshments not just increase efficiency and productivity but enterprises and businesses can save funds on annual basis, too.

Intel's own refreshment rate is two years and company has about 99 per cent usages of mobile PCs across its offices globally.