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Intel and Tivoli Team To Develop Breakthrough Workgroup And Enterprise Management Solution

New Level of Desktop-Enterprise Integration Aims to Ease Management, Reduce Total Cost of Ownership

ATLANTA, Georgia, NetWorld+Interop -- September 18, 1996 -- Intel Corporation and Tivoli Systems Inc. today announced plans to seamlessly integrate enterprise and workgroup management, making effective PC management easily accessible to users of enterprise-wide products. Addressing the gap that exists between enterprise and workgroup management software, the two leaders' comprehensive agreement for technology development and product licensing is designed to make workgroup product capabilities easily accessible to users of enterprise management products and allow better centralized management of high-performance networked PCs within the enterprise.

Until now, customers have faced three challenges in bridging these two environments. Their workgroup and enterprise management solutions are "islands of automation" that address functions which are specific to their environment and management view, but neither encompasses full function management of the entire computing infrastructure. Second, while advances have been made, it is still too costly to configure, monitor and maintain desktops. And, customers must act as their own systems integrator in order to cobble together a comprehensive solution.

Intel and Tivoli, in a significant expansion of their existing relationship, are addressing these challenges by working together in four areas: integration of workgroup and enterprise disciplines; expanded product licensing agreements; cooperation to develop a common software agent; and ingredient branding of the content in each other's products.

Integration of Workgroup and Enterprise Disciplines

The two companies have taken the lead in developing an application programming interface (API) and reference implementation called the Management Services Broker, which establishes new levels of full integration and interoperability between enterprise and workgroup management products. The development of the broker acknowledges that while each discipline is important, the interlocking of the two is the only way to eliminate the islands of automation that currently impede the delivery of an end-to-end management solution spanning from PCs to enterprise servers and hosts.

For example, today there is no seamless way to distribute software or acquire inventory data across systems managed by enterprise and workgroup products, and event data cannot be readily exchanged between the two. With the Management Services Broker, Intel and Tivoli are leading the industry in allowing enterprise and workgroup products to cooperatively meet customers' management needs, thereby saving time, reducing cost and eliminating error-prone repetition. The broker will enable customers who use certain LANDesk and TME 10 products to schedule software to be distributed to both TME 10 and Intel-managed desktops, and inventory data known to those LANDesk products will be available to TME 10 Inventory users.

To deliver the benefits of this work to the industry at large, both companies will promote the API to other key industry players. Additionally, early next year Intel plans to develop a Tivoli/ Plus integration module for its new LANDesk workgroup help desk product.

Expanded Product License Agreement

Tivoli is expanding its current licensing agreement with Intel to include additional products from the Intel LANDesk product family, including LANDesk Client Manager, LANDesk Server Manager Pro and LANDesk Workgroup Manager. This will bring simplification to customers' purchase decisions and reduce their role as systems integrator as they can now buy workgroup and enterprise management products from one vendor.

Management Ready Cooperation

The companies will license technologies to each other to create a base software agent that will enable Intel processor-based hardware to be managed out-of-the-box by both Intel and Tivoli management products and by other management products compatible with the agent. As a result, customers will no longer need to load additional agents or code onto clients and servers configured with this technology, and will immediately be able to install software, get events, obtain inventory status and execute other management tasks. This will reduce the total cost of ownership of PCs by providing a methodical, efficient way for managing PC desktops from the time the machine is unboxed by the customer.

Ingredient Branding

The two companies will undertake various ingredient branding initiatives, including respective use of "Includes Intel LANDesk Technology" and "Tivoli Ready" branding on each other's management products. This will allow customers to easily recognize which products offer Intel and Tivoli integration capabilities and product features.

Intel and Tivoli Perspective

"Integrating with enterprise management environments is a key element of Intel's strategy for effectively managing high-performance PCs and servers," said Frank Gill, executive vice president of Intel. "By forging a new level of integration, Tivoli and Intel will give powerful new capabilities to companies striving to reduce the operating costs of their networked environments."

"As responsible leaders in the industry, we must sometimes take the lead in evolving new capabilities," said Frank Moss, CEO and president of Tivoli Systems. "Our customers have cited the need for integration between workgroup and enterprise management products. Tivoli has stepped to the forefront and allied with Intel to enable this integration, yet preserve customers' investments in existing management systems.

Management Services Broker Availability

In November, a draft of the specification for the API and Management Services Broker will be made available for industry comment. At that time, a working group will be formed to discuss and revise the document. Once the initial draft is revised, Intel and Tivoli intend to offer a reference implementation of the broker to all interested parties to speed time to market for other management product vendors. Tivol.i and Intel plan to license the Management Services Broker API, when available, freely to the industry.

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is committed to advancing the managed, connected PC for high-performance business computing while reducing management and support costs. Information about Intel is available from the company's site on the world wide web at URL http://www.intel.com./pressroom.

Tivoli Systems Inc., an IBM company, provides an open, end-to-end management solution from mainframes to the desktop, spanning network and systems management. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Tivoli distributes its products worldwide through a network of domestic and international sales offices, systems integrators, resellers and IBM sales channels. For more information about Tivoli Systems, visit Tivoli's World Wide Web site at http://www.tivoli.com.

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