Viiv continues to confound

ON THE SHOW floor at CES, we visited the Intel booth for a briefing on a Media Center.

While at the meeting, a vendor who shall remain nameless, indicated there are many different levels of "Viiv" - similar to a THX certification process. When I pressed the issue on what exactly Viiv is, he admitted that it is a sticker that sits on the face of the machine.

Deciding to check a bit further, I reviewed publicly available documents to see if, in fact, there is a Viiv, Viiv Lite, or Viiv Ultra lying around and found none. However, I did find an interesting pdf that shows Viiv "Technology" to be... ready for this? A computer.

When I looked for the sooper sekrit sauce that makes Viiv what Viiv is, I drew a blank. The Intel-provided Viiv technology comes down to a motherboard and a CPU which from all appearances will be available through retail channels as well.

The * after "Technology" takes you to a note indicating that third parties will also contribute to the VIIV technology. So, if I read it right, you could go down to Best Buy or your flavour-of-the-day store and build yourself a Viiv box. I wonder if there will be a rack with Viiv stickers on it so you can buy those too?

In a nutshell, Viiv is an attempt to brand a media-capable computer much like the notebook industry was branded with Centrino. The Viiv 'Technology' is off the shelf and available to anyone with the inclination to build their own media center.

So what is Viiv? For Intel it seems to be an attempt to make itself into Sony. As has been the case in the past, Intel has thrown millions of dollars into advertising and 'partner programs' (read massive marketing fund payouts) to encourage people to drink the kool-aid and buy an Intel. Perhaps this time the Blue Men will actually ship with the stickers. µ