Integration allows IT teams to remotely manage and repair computer fleets through familiar Microsoft platform, even if PCs are down or corrupted.
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The challenge facing information technology (IT) teams today is simple: In an era of rampant cyberthreats and decentralized workforces, how do you fix a computer that won’t boot up, is corrupted by malware, or is simply down? For Intel’s Novin Kaihani, senior director of Commercial Client Platforms and Software Products, the answer arrived not in a conference room, but in a dream.
“I woke up one day and knew we needed to go much faster and directly to our customers,” Kaihani recalled, describing the moment he realized the traditional and complex model for deploying Intel vPro’s powerful remote management was too slow. …
Integration allows IT teams to remotely manage and repair computer fleets through familiar Microsoft platform, even if PCs are down or corrupted.
In this article:
The challenge facing information technology (IT) teams today is simple: In an era of rampant cyberthreats and decentralized workforces, how do you fix a computer that won’t boot up, is corrupted by malware, or is simply down? For Intel’s Novin Kaihani, senior director of Commercial Client Platforms and Software Products, the answer arrived not in a conference room, but in a dream.
“I woke up one day and knew we needed to go much faster and directly to our customers,” Kaihani recalled, describing the moment he realized the traditional and complex model for deploying Intel vPro’s powerful remote management was too slow. “That’s when I asked the team to build a plan for how we take modern cloud native management directly to IT.”
That urgency has culminated in a major milestone for enterprise device management: Intel vPro® Fleet Services – a modern cloud native service – is now available directly through the Microsoft Intune partner portal. It’s the first time a silicon-based fleet management tool has been integrated into the Intune platform, bridging the gap between the physical hardware and the cloud-based tools millions of IT professionals already use.
Intune is a digital control center IT managers use to remotely monitor, secure and push updates to every computer in their company’s fleet, whether those devices are in the office, across the globe or turned off.
Watch a demonstration of how IT managers can remotely fix an employee’s PC issue using Intel vPro Fleet Management services, even if the PC isn’t working 30,000 feet in the air during a flight. (Credit: Intel Corporation)
Remote Management Solves Real-World IT Challenges
** **Intel vPro, available on Intel® Core™ Ultra and Intel® Core™ business PCs, seamlessly integrates into any enterprise system and can be scaled to hundreds or thousands of devices. The platform helps IT departments reduce on-site PC repairs by fixing and diagnosing computer problems remotely, regardless of what’s happening on them1.
For nearly 20 years, Intel vPro has been synonymous with robust business platforms, defined by four core pillars: performance, built-in silicon-based security, stability and manageability.
“This is the biggest change to vPro in that 20-year history,” Kaihani said. “We made the investment to completely redo the software. We’ve made it modern, cloud-connected and integrated with top independent software vendors.”
While vPro has historically offered unmatched manageability, the traditional deployment posed a challenge for modern enterprise IT teams, requiring them to embrace a self-hosted model with specialized software and servers. It was complex and led to some customers not activating the protection and manageability that comes with vPro-enabled Intel devices.
The modern IT landscape now demands software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions – a simple, turnkey approach. It’s what drove Kaihani’s epiphany – the need to overhaul the complete software package, delivering a simpler, faster, and cloud-connected modern vPro experience directly to customers. This was the critical step that finally unlocked integration with Microsoft Intune.
And it was the massive Crowdstrike outage in 2024 that made more businesses realize they needed a management solution that scales across their whole fleet, giving them confidence it’s reliable in a crisis.
During that outage, IT teams across global industries had to manually remove the corrupt file. That means they had to physically touch every computer – whether in airports or hospital surgical suites around the world – to get them back up and running. For some enterprises, it took weeks.
“Disaster recovery conversations have long been about data centers. This is disaster recovery for PCs,” said Jennifer Larson, general manager of Intel Commercial Client segments. “And while we want businesses to activate vPro’s Fleet Management system broadly so they can access any of their PCs, it’s the mission-critical PCs in surgery rooms, in airports, on trade floors that could be considered critical if they go down. We are the only ones that can do it.”
What Customers Are Saying
Since becoming available on Microsoft Intune in September 2025, Larson and Kaihani say there has been an “incredible volume of customers” who have activated their vPro device fleet, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to large healthcare and financial enterprises, government organizations, municipalities and university systems.
An IT management company told Intel they were “able to configure vPro in my lab within minutes, something I’ve tried to do for years. This is fantastic!” Another IT manager at a large healthcare company said, “I’ve tested vPro Fleet Services with my colleague, and it basically works flawlessly.”
Customers can have full confidence in their privacy and security. Intel cannot remotely access, manage, or view any customer vPro devices, nor can it see any customer data. Intel’s cloud service holds only a portion of the cryptographic keys required to establish a secure connection — the other portion remains solely with the customer’s IT administrators. Only the IT team can initiate and authorize access.
“When others begin to follow your lead, it’s a strong indication that you’re delivering something customers truly value,” Larson said. “We view that as a positive – it raises the bar for everyone. What truly differentiates us is the depth of understanding that comes from more than 20 years of listening to our customers, learning from them, and translating those insights into meaningful innovation. That sustained focus is what’s brought us to where we are today.”
More: Intune partner portal adds Intel vPro integration (Microsoft Intune Blog) | Read Signal65’s competitive analysis of Intel vPro
1 Remote management requires a network connection; must be a known network for Wi-Fi out-of-band management. See https://www.intel.com/Performance-vProIndexfor details. Results may vary.All versions of the Intel vPro platform require an eligible Intel processor, a supported operating system, Intel LAN and/or WLAN silicon, firmware enhancements, and other hardware and software necessary to deliver the manageability use cases, security features, system performance, and stability that define the platform. See www.Intel.com/Performance-vPro for details. Intel vPro Fleet Services is available at no extra cost to help businesses activate and engage Intel Active Management Technology, which is exclusive to PCs built on Intel vPro. Performance varies by use, configuration and other factors. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex . No product or component can be absolutely secure. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex (Security & Manageability). Your costs and results may vary.