The business computer market is dominated by a few big names, including IBM,
Dell, HP and Lenovo. But one significant player you don’t hear that much about
is “Other,” the millions of so called “white box” PCs built by system
integrators, resellers and other manufacturing entities.
Now graphics
chipmaker Nvidia has plans to make these systems more attractive
to medium-size businesses and corporations with a testing and certification
program.
Nvidia, best known for its graphics chips used for gaming, has developed
the Nvidia Business Platform (NBP) in concert with AMD and
other partners aimed at the white box PC market.
“This is a 20 million unit annual opportunity in the US and Europe that’s
primarily served by Intel today,” David Ragones, product manager for the
Nvidia Business Platform, told internetnews.com. “We’re enabling the
channel to sell against the Dells and HPs of the world.”
NBP works with and extends AMD’s own Customer Stable Image Platform
(CSIP) program and includes a unified driver architecture.
“Intel dominates the desktop market for large business, but there’s a lot
more frothy opportunity in smaller and mid-size businesses for alternative
suppliers,” Roger Kay, analyst with Endpoint Technologies, told
internetnews.com.
“You don’t buy a transmission, you buy a car. This
is the kind of thing AMD needs to get more of the business market. The
stable image is extremely important to business because it makes it a lot
easier to install and maintain the same hardware and software on multiple
machines.”
The Nvidia Business Platform Certified logo will appear on computers
certified by NVIDIA. Intel has expanded its branding program in recent years
with the addition of the Centrino mobile, Viiv consumer and Intel Leap ahead
(which replaced Intel Inside) logos.
The business platform has already started on an informal basis, but a
larger public rollout is planned in the coming weeks. Elements of the NBP
program include what Ragones said will be rigorous testing of motherboards
from such companies as Foxconn, Assus, MSI and Gigabyte, and other
components from manufacturers participating in the program.
Further
compliance analyzer software will verify the AMD processor, voltage
regulation, temperature and other specs based on the NBP certification
criteria.
“We’re giving the channel the testing resources they wouldn’t have
otherwise,” said Ragones.
Nvidia is aligning its NBP with AMD’s product roadmap and says it will
update the stable image or platform every 12 months. The current NBP is
based on either AMD Athlon 64 or Athlon 64 X2 CPUs. The hardware is “Vista
read” but doesn’t require the forthcoming new version of Microsoft’s
operating system.
From an IT perspective, Nvidia said it’s working with Microsoft and
Altiris to provide standard software installation and manageability
features.
NBP PCs will include remote boot, restart and shutdown, as well as ActiveArmor Firewall protection.
If the business push is a surprise by a company known for its popularity
among gamers, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is quick to point out it
has an established business presence.
For example, NVIDIA says seven out of 10
Wall Street trading floors use NVIDIA technology for multi-displays and 9
out of ten automobiles are designed on NVIDIA-powered workstations.
NVIDIAs effort dovetails with AMD’s own recent push to build its channel presence for commercial or business accounts.
Earlier this week AMD
announced more than 500 new participants joined its AMD Commercial Systems
Channel Program, which system includes integrators, value-added resellers
(VARs) and distributors.
