Announced at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, SuiteTwo was produced by Intel"s investment arm, Intel Capital, and will be available via OEM (original equipment manufacturer) reseller channels and some Intel software partners in about six months. The package will sell for US$175 to $200 per user annually or $15 to $17 per user monthly. "This was a unique opportunity to actively create an effective software suite that delivers heightened capabilities to the enterprise ecosystem," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital.
Like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and AMD Intel has aligned with developing Web 2.0 application companies, Senior Analyst Laura DiDio told TechNewsWorld. Intel was looking for new revenue streams while, at the same time, hoping to steer the direction of standards for Web 2.0 sites and services such as Wikipedia, MySpace and YouTube , she claimed.
"Intel has given this a lot of thought," she said. "What they"ve done here is pretty smart." The company is trying to appeal to smaller work groups within large enterprises, in addition to the small- and medium-size business user, she said, adding that it has assembled the framework and partners to make its new software interesting.