Intel Viiv

» see intel.com/viiv as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the last words ~

Viiv was not a chip. It was a certification: a list of things a PC had to contain before the maker was allowed to put the word on the box. A dual-core processor from the right family, an Intel chipset, an Intel network part, surround sound output, and a software layer Intel wrote called the Media Server, meant to push video around the house to whatever else was on the network. Intel announced it at the fall Developer Forum on 24 August 2005 and the first certified machines showed up at CES in January 2006.

The reasoning was sound on paper, because Intel had done this once already and it had worked. Centrino bundled a Pentium M with an Intel wireless part and sold the idea of a laptop you could leave unplugged and still keep online, and people bought the sticker without knowing what was under it. Viiv was the same maneuver aimed at the room with the television in it. Intel even built a DRM position into the pitch and then walked it back publicly, which was the first sign that nobody involved was sure what the product was for.

Centrino I could explain in one sentence. Viiv I could not explain at all, and by the mid-2000s in Turkey the person who studied computer engineering was the person the family asked before buying a machine. Every honest answer to that question was about the processor and the amount of memory, plus whether the warranty could be reached from the city you lived in. There was never a version of the answer where the word on the palm rest changed anything, because everything the word certified was already on the spec sheet in plainer language.

~ the record ~

~ what the sticker promised ~

The promise was a home entertainment PC that behaved like an appliance. You would put it under the television, it would wake instantly instead of booting, a remote would drive it, and it would serve media to the other screens in the house without anyone configuring anything. Intel lined up more than a dozen manufacturer partners for the launch and a matching set of content partners, on the theory that certified hardware plus certified content equals a category.

What arrived instead was a Windows XP Media Center Edition machine with a fan in it, sitting in a case shaped like a stereo component, priced above a normal desktop and below a normal television. The Inquirer called it broken and then called it an embarrassment, which is harsh but not far off the general reception. The trade press covered it dutifully because Intel spent money on it. Buyers mostly did not notice it existed.

~ how it actually ended ~

There was no shutdown notice, because there was nothing to shut down. In late 2007 Intel told the press that starting in 2008 Viiv would no longer stand on its own and would appear as "Intel Core 2 with Viiv Technology", which is a phrase that puts the brand you recognize first and the brand you do not in the trailing position. The Register wrote it up on 17 December 2007 and iTnews ran it four days later under the headline that Intel had admitted defeat.

The stated reason was accurate and it was the whole problem. Intel said PC makers had been shipping the required features as standard since 2005 anyway, particularly after Vista arrived, so a badge that certified them no longer certified anything. Media Server stopped at version 1.7.1 with no further releases planned. The badge lingered on Core 2 boxes into 2009 and then it was gone, and the living room PC turned out to be a set-top box made by someone else entirely.

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