This week, many titans of tech, such as Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Eric Schmidt, have come together at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. As the name implies, "Web 2.0" is the supposed next big thing for the Internet, and while much of the focus up to now has been on consumer applications, that's starting to change. In fact, at the conference, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) announced a new software package, called SuiteTwo, that leverages Web 2.0 technologies for businesses.
The product includes software from a variety of Intel's venture-capital investments:
- Socialtext, which has a wiki that helps workers collaborate on projects. In fact, this is the technology Wikipedia uses.
- NewsGator, which aggregates many news sources.
- SimpleFeed, which allows companies to send content to partners using RSS technology.
- Movable Type, which is a blogging platform.
- SpikeSource, which integrates all of these technologies.
Unlike typical Web 2.0 products to date, Intel wants to -- and intends to -- make money with this one. To do that, the company plans to sell SuiteTwo on a subscription basis. The price will be about $175 to $200 per user, per year.
Intel also plans to promote SuiteTwo through its extensive distribution network, which includes Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), NEC, Ingram Micro, and Tech Data (NASDAQ:TECD). This is important, because Web 2.0 is still very much in the early-adopter stage in Corporate America.
I interviewed Michael Mankowski, an analyst with The 451 Group, who told me, "There are many consumers using wikis, blogs, and other Web 2.0 services from companies like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO). But we are now seeing these services bubble up into the corporate world. And Intel wants to be there."
Does this mean Intel wants to be a software company? Not really. Essentially, this is a clever way for the company to promote its core chip business. It also helps it differentiate itself from its arch-competitor, AMD (NYSE:AMD).
However, do not expect SuiteTwo to result in a material jump in revenues. Simply put, Intel is too big for that. But it is certainly encouraging to see that Intel is making some innovative moves to make itself more competitive.
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Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares of companies mentioned in this article. He is currently ranked 98th out of more than 12,000 players in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's new stock-rating community. Join up and add your own opinion -- it's absolutely free.
