Intel’s Core 2 Duo Vendor Waltz

Intel’s largest product launch in 10 years, the Core 2 Duo, available en masse Aug. 7, required coordinating with more than 30 suppliers and vendors in North America to make sure the product has a home when it hits the market.

“It’s one thing to say you have all the processors you need,” said Todd Garrigues, Intel’s North American Channel Products Marketing Manager, “but what about the mother boards? What about the cases? You need to make everyone is ready with enough of the pieces, in each of the geographies, that there is a home for the processor at launch.”

The task fell to Garrigues and his team to align the supply chains of OEMs, server manufacturers, memory vendors, case makers, thermal solution vendors, six desktop manufacturers and others to ensure enough supply is on hand in local regions for resellers and system builders to build solutions when the Core 2 Duo becomes available Aug. 7.

Thousands of machines using the Core 2 will roll out immediately following the launch, and Intel expects the processor to constitute 25 percent of its processor portfolio in distribution by the end of the quarter, Garrigues said.

The coordination is more significant and more trying for Intel than any previous product launch, as the chip maker plans widespread availability and market interest immediately, as opposed to the typical launch, which used the launch as an introduction to the product and allowed interest and use to rise over a three-to-six-month period.

Click here to read more about the Core 2 Duo launch and Intel’s marketing plans for its product line.

Because it is delivered as a platform, instead of a CPU, with hardware and software configured to deliver functions on the Core 2’s dual-core architecture, the Santa Clara, Calif., vendor is relying on solutions around the processor to make it relevant as well as available, said Steve Dallman, Intel’s director of American distribution and channel sales and marketing.

Intel has already seeded the market with several hundred units and has worked with OEMs and ISVs to ensure solutions using the Core 2 Duo also launch alongside the processor.