Here's an interesting read about vPro. It's from last year, I have no idea what the situation is right now:
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/05/15/intel-small-business-advantage-is-a-security-nightmare/
"The short version of all this is that Intel has been proven to not understand security, stonewalls whitehat security researchers who bring up serious problems, and then takes literally years to patch holes with known exploits."