Client

Intel, together with Pearson and other educational content publishers, device manufacturers, and retail and online sales channels.

Problem

Intel wanted to increase demand for Intel-powered consumer devices by bundling them with premium digital content. Publishers wanted broad distribution while retaining control over licensing and protection against piracy. Retail and online channels needed a promotion that could run at national scale without manual code handling or infrastructure changes.

The main constraints were structural:

• Digital content could not be securely bound to specific hardware using traditional promo mechanisms.
• Publishers required stronger guarantees that content would only run on eligible devices.
• The campaign involved multiple manufacturers, retailers, and content owners, with no shared licensing or enforcement layer.
• The solution had to work across online and offline channels at consumer scale.

Solution

The team delivered a hardware-aware digital licensing system using Aggregion as the coordination layer between Intel, publishers, device manufacturers, retailers, and end users.

Customers installed an application that verified device eligibility at runtime. Processor validation ensured that only Intel-powered devices could activate the bundled content, eliminating static codes and manual checks. Licenses were bound to verified hardware using Intel TPM, providing hardware-rooted protection against unauthorized activation and redistribution.

The platform coordinated licensing across multiple publishers, including Pearson and other educational content providers, allowing each content owner to define its own activation and usage rules. Content delivery and playback were optimized for Intel devices, and integration with Intel WiDi enabled secure streaming from devices to Smart TVs over WiFi.

The system operated independently of retailer infrastructure and device firmware, enabling deployment across online stores and physical retail without operational changes.

Outcome

The campaign ran at full national scale and delivered measurable results:

• 203,000 Intel devices sold
• Over 1 million content licenses activated
• Strong piracy protection through TPM-based, hardware-bound licensing
• Improved user experience via secure streaming and optimized playback
• Unified visibility across devices, publishers, and channels

This case demonstrated early, real-world experience with hardware-rooted trust and confidential execution, using TPM-based verification to enforce digital rights at scale across consumer devices.