Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation today outlined plans to connect computer network management technologies and also to work together to advance promising virtualization technology that will bring businesses new capabilities and cost savings.

In a move to bring unique management benefits to the broad number of users of Microsoft� Systems Management Server 2003 (SMS) for the first time, Intel plans to connect its new Intel� Active Management Technology (Intel� AMT) with Microsoft SMS, substantially enhancing customers' ability to more thoroughly protect their computers from viruses and to help significantly lower maintenance costs.

Intel and Microsoft have also joined together to extend Intel� Virtualization Technology (Intel� VT) to include support for mapping I/O devices to virtual machines on servers with a new specification, published today, called Intel Virtualization for Directed I/O (Intel VT�d). Part of the Intel VT family of technologies, Intel VT�d helps improve the reliability, flexibility and performance of I/O in a virtualized environment. Microsoft has collaborated with Intel on development of the specification to help ensure it provides optimal functionality for users.