Now that I’m on the heels of Intel Vision, I want to start off by saying how deeply impacted I was by my first Intel event with partners and customers, and it’s in no small part thanks to the wonderful people who made it possible. It was more than a technology showcase; it truly felt like a family reunion!

It was incredible to see our partners, customers, and the Intel team come together and bond over our shared goals, with plenty of laughter, and yes, even hugs thrown in. I can’t describe how good it felt to be face-to-face after the last two years. I can only say the atmosphere was electric, and I’m excited to carry this energy forward as we head into summer.

Beyond the thrill of seeing everyone in person, I was amazed at the momentum coming from our partner community. You are innovating bigger and faster than ever, and I had the chance to chat with many of you about how we can continue driving this momentum forward.

One of the things Pat Gelsinger said at Intel Vision that really stuck with me is the sheer size of our developer community. We have over 17,000 software engineers at Intel focused on building software. The expertise of 17,000+ engineers is available to every single ISV and partner that wants to build with us. It’s incredible.

In other words, there’s a lot of us, we are here, and we’re all in this with you. I want to use this opportunity to not only explore what we heard from you at the event, but to also expand on our vision for the coming months and give you a look at how our partner community is evolving.

Out with the old, in with the new

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my key drivers for coming to Intel was the software ecosystem and our long history as the technology backbone of the most innovative solutions. As we all know, the world of technology is never stagnant, and if you’ve ever tried running a modern environment on old tech, you will know exactly what I mean. Even if the solution is innovative, it’s not going to delight customers if it doesn’t run well in their environments.

That’s really the through line of our vision: We want our partners to have a modern, adaptable, integrated, and optimized technology stack, with the portability to run in any environment. And we want to make it easy to develop optimized solutions.

To make that happen, we’re going back to our developer roots. That’s why we’re putting so much emphasis on forward-looking technology – namely, open source – with greater support for developers and ISVs. We want you to continue building on the Intel backbone in a way that’s sustainable and profitable for your business in 2022 and beyond.

“That’s really the through line of our vision: We want partners to have a modern, adaptable, integrated, and optimized technology stack, with the portability to run in any environment.”

The optimized technology stack is the new backbone of success

What really drives this vision home for me is the conversations I’ve had with partners over the past months. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to India to meet more of our partners, and I heard from you first-hand how essential this vision is, not only for you, but for your customers. 

I also had the same conversations at Intel Vision. It’s clear there are challenges stemming from the last two years that hinders progress for many businesses. As a perfect example, when COVID first hit the world stage and information workers went virtual, everyone rapidly moved to the cloud. But moving fast meant there was no time to test how well environments were running in the cloud. Combined with the ongoing supply chain shortages and greater competition in the market, it’s easy to see the roadblocks to innovation.

But that’s why I love where we’re heading! Not only are we accelerating and modernizing our tech stack, but we’re also embracing the future with an open-source and cross-platform foundation to enable success no matter what the world throws our way. However you want to deploy – even if it’s not in the cloud – our technology can handle it. And you will be ready for your customers’ environments, too. 

Our technology has the portability, flexibility, and security to take our partners to the next level, and we already have a partner ecosystem that enables our developer and ISV partners to achieve success. I really can’t wait for you to see what’s coming down the pipeline.

How are we helping partners take it to the next level?

For me, the theme of this year is focused on partner engagement, and there are three key areas of our vision I want to highlight:

First, we’re bolstering our technical sales training.

We recognize that today’s customers have different needs than they did even two or three years ago, and we know our partners are feeling the pressure of that shift. Our goal is to help you go to market with full confidence that your solutions will both run and sell well. As we co-innovate with you, we’re working to enable your team to stay competitive in a rapidly changing market.

Second, we’re building a roadmap of functionality and benefits.

“Repeatability” is something that bubbled to the top of conversations throughout Intel Vision, especially for ISV partners. You want more support around repeatable ways to offer value to customers, and we hear you! Our goal is to add functionality and workflows that support your go-to-market strategies while letting you differentiate with new solutions.

Finally, we’re giving you tools and resources to ensure success.

Our technology is what sets us apart, and it’s what sets our partners apart. We already have resources available for you and we certainly have more coming. Our toolkits will be especially impactful for partners looking to grow this year, so if you’re not already familiar with them, I encourage you check out: 

• OpenVINO™ toolkit to improve speed and ease of development 
• oneAPI toolkit to accelerate and optimize your workloads across all environments
• Software Guard Extensions to protect your data and enhance security for unique applications
•  Granulate to improve compute performance and optimize workload performance

There are more assets and resources available in the Intel Developer Zone to help you accelerate the development cycle and optimize your solutions, and I’m looking forward to telling tales of your success at next year’s event. Especially with a hug or two!

What’s Next?

Maybe it’s the electricity of Intel Vision still coursing through me, but I am genuinely buzzing with excitement about our partner community and everything we have in store.

If you’re not yet a partner, my call to action is this: Join the Intel Partner Alliance! Come see what makes our partners different and experience the future together with us.

If you’re already a partner, connect with me! I would love to hear more about your partnership journey and how I can help amplify the work you’re doing. And don’t forget to join us for events, such as Intel Innovation. Come and meet the Intel partner team and connect with each other, too. The strength of our partnerships can’t be underestimated, and I can say one thing for sure: I can’t wait to meet you.