Intel delivers new era for virtualization

Quoting from the Intel official announcement:

Delivering the industry’s first hardware virtualization support for desktop PCs, Intel Corporation debuted new processors today that offer businesses improved manageability and bolstered security.

Virtualization allows a platform to run multiple operating systems or applications in independent partitions or “containers” that can be tailored for specific needs such as IT management services and protecting networked assets.

Intel Pentium 4 processor-based desktop PCs are being offered by Acer, Founder, Lenovo and TongFang. Lenovo is now offering Intel Virtualization Technology-based pilot systems to select customers, and broad support for desktop PC solutions from several other system manufacturers is expected in the first quarter of 2006. In addition, leading industry virtualization solution providers including VMware, Microsoft and Xen have joined Intel in support of Intel Virtualization Technology on future Intel processor-based PCs and servers.

Further evolving “built-in” world-class IT security and manageability capabilities for businesses, Intel will deliver the second phase of another premier platform innovation – Intel Active Management Technology – together with virtualization support on its dual-core Intel Professional Business Platform, codenamed Averill, later in 2006. Virtualization capabilities will also be extended to notebook PCs, and the company will first support this through Intel Centrino mobile technology-based platforms in 2006.

Businesses are also benefiting from virtualization for their server applications primarily through enhanced functionality and workload support. Intel announced last week that it is shipping Intel Xeon processors MP with hardware-enabled support for Intel Virtualization Technology. The company will begin shipping this same technology on Intel Itanium processor-based platforms in mid-2006.

Desktop PCs based on the Intel Pentium 4 processor 672 and 662 processors with Intel Virtualization Technology are available today on systems being offered by Acer, Founder, Lenovo and TongFang. The Intel Pentium 4 processor 672 and 662 are priced at $605 and $401 respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities.