PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. (02/16/2000) - Intel will announce here Wednesday at its developer conference the Intel NetStructure brand and the first seven NetStructure Internet infrastructure appliances and communications products.
Products include a Web caching appliance, load balancing equipment, a security authentication accelerator, as well as high-speed switching devices, officials said.
The NetStructure brand fits under the umbrella of a much larger and ambitious strategy by Intel called Internet Exchange Architecture (IXA).
IXA is Intel's attempt to duplicate the success the chip giant has had when it created the Intel platform for desktops, by designing a similar industry standard around Intel chips and components for Internet infrastructure and communications devices, according to Mark Christiansen, Intel vice president and general manager of the Network Communications Group.
One analyst believes the Intel name will make it a force to be reckoned with in this market, but that it is unlikely Intel will gain an 80 percent market share as it has on the desktop.
"It will take time to establish the Intel brand name in those new segments.
Intel brings a lot of advantages and the name is familiar to IT people, that is a big headstart," said Linley Gwenapp, principal analyst for the LinleyGroup in Mountain View, Calif.
"They spent a lot of time talking to ISPs to understand what products they want," Gwenapp added.
As Intel looks beyond desktops and servers to continue its phenomenal growth -- 30 percent through most of the 1990s -- another part of the Intel strategy is to expand its market well beyond chip making.
The introduction of seven new products from newly formed Communications Products Group are targeted at improving performance for e-business.
The NetStructure products announced Wednesday include:
* Intel NetStructure Cache 1500 Caching Appliance designed for use with the Inktomi Traffic Server Engine;* Intel NetStructure 7180 e-Commerce Director for security acceleration in Secure Socket Layer transactions;* Intel NetStructure 7110 e-Commerce Accelerator to off-load processor cycles for e-commerce traffic;* Intel NetStructure 7140 and 7170 Traffic Director for traffic management by measuring server response time;* Intel NetStructure 7190 Multi-Site Traffic Director to direct customer traffic to highest-performing infrastructure devices;* Intel NetStructure 6000 Series Switch, a Gigabit Ethernet switch for aggregating networked servers.
Intel's Christensen also announced on Wednesday that Ericsson, Lucent and Nokia will be among those companies using IXA to build networking and communications equipment.
Intel will also fund research projects "to further extend the reach of the Intel IX architecture" at major universities around the country, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Texas at Austin, Columbia University, the Oregon Graduate Institute and the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley.
Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., can be reached at http://www.intel.com.
InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz is based in San Francisco.