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Intel Dropping Pentium Brand
Devistater writes "After changing their logo from 'Intel Inside' to 'Leap Ahead,' (and attempting to explain why 2006 is a leap year), Intel has now decided to drop the Pentium brand. Instead of an 'Intel Pentium 4 Dual core' you will be now be purchasing an 'Intel D 840.' You can see the intial steps of this move on Dell's desktop lineup.
On the heels of the news of AMD outselling Intel in Desktop Retail sales for two consecutive months, is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?"
Funny that Slashdot's category image sticks to the age-old logo for Intel.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?"
Sure it is. The first thing I think of is the original Pentium when I hear the word Pentium. Without the 4 after it, it inheritly sounds slow.
It might seem crazy now, but it is hard to think of companies that really suffered (to the extent of exiting the industry) when they changed their brand names. Quality determines whether a product will be successful, and advertising and branding determine who successful it will be.
I am sure Intel have given a great deal of thought to this, and in a few years saying D 860 or whatever will be completely natural. As it is, they are going to get bucketloads of publicity from the name change and that will help their bottom line.
The Pentium name has been around for too long, it sounds old and used. However most common users may not even know Pentium, as long as they see the "Intel Inside" logo they think they are getting the best machine.
Further more, Intel chips are going to go into Macs so maybe a name change will be good to make the Mac users feel like they're recieving the new improved intel?
My work here is dung.
let's call it olddot - news for seniles. stuff that is prone to be duped.
Intel's marketing guys need a serious kick in the genitals. First they get smoked by AMD with http://www.leapsbeyond.com/ and now they are dropping the Pentium moniker. Why on earth they are killing their brand name recognition they have spent millions drilling into everyone's minds is beyond me. They did not need a 'reinvention' from a marketing point of view but a reinvention of the actual product itself. AMD is really making up for where intel is mis-stepping. They really are leaps beyond Intel IMO.
Honestly I'm surprised they stuck with Pentium brand for so long. It's was kinda starting to feel like police acadamy movies.
This is a move they should've made when the Pentium II came out.
This guy's the limit!
Well, they have been using the Pentium 4 brand since when, 2001? The architecture has changed quite a lot during those years, and yet they kept "Pentium 4" until a while ago. Why for?
But then, getting rid of the whole Pentium brand is kind of weird - build something for 10 years until it becomes recognizable worldwide and is considered as a synonymous of computers (for computer illiterate people at least) and then just throw it away like that?
Are they in such need for a fresh start?
Please recall that AMD is only surpassing Intel in Retail sales, so these are the sales not of a computer that is already built like a dell. the retail purchaser will have an understanding or a knowlege of the naming of the chips before they purchase them (as does a current amd purchaser know the difference between a 939 and a 754 chipset). I think that this will not affect sales in its strogest catagories such as with gateway, dell or sony computers, and will only help retail sales because consumers can now see naming stratagies closer to that of AMD's.
This is what a company does when it has no clue about how to respond to the competition. It may be that they perceive the threat of AMD's assault so formidable that they have to discard their brand asset and it's good-will.
maybe apple struck a deal with them to have a different type of processor than the public would be able to buy for grey boxs to hinfer attemptsd to run OSX on non apple hardware
Losing the brand name is stupid. Intel even has pop culture behind it.
Kind of like when my wife's real estate agency went from "Better Homes and Gardens" to "GMAC" Ugh. "GMAC" stands for General Motors Assurance Corporation - how boring is that?
Likewise, other recognizable brands or trade names have been wasted into oblivion by idiots sitting on boards who have no clue what they are doing. Witness "Securitas" - what's that, you say? It used to be known as "The Pinkerton Agency" - ahhh... now you recognize it, right? Recognize it fromt he countless pop culture references in western movies and books.
Modern Marketing sucks bigtime.
They should have differentiated the dual core chips a while back to make them stand out from the single core Pentiums. This smacks of a last minute name change to do just that but without the benefit of marketing hype.
I don't mind Intel dropping the Pentium brand. It will just help people I talk to remember that "D" stands for Digital Restrictions Managment in the new Intel computers.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
the pentium brand is only meaningful in PCs. they couldn't benefit from it in PDAs, phones and potentially other devices. if they standardize, like the D, X (scale, in PDAs), etc, it can be taken to the new, "global" level, without having to separate by product type.
my $0.02
The brand name is old enough that people associate it with old and (comparable) slow computers. And old is not a good association for computers.
Absolutely not, to ordinary plebs the name "pentium" is synonomous with the cpu you want to run in your machine. "Intel" is not something that is generally going to be definitely known. What a waste of years and years of brand building. Dropping the name does not in any way increase performance - it simply means they must suffer a period of familiarisation again.
Sure, AMD is more edgy and definitely the one you want to be running but that is far from what the average person who knows jack thinks.
What does surprise me is that they haven't come up with a better product name to replace it. The whole point of using "Pentium" instead of "i586" was trademark and brand identity, and going back to numbers and letters loses that.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I await the day Intel try to trademark the letter D after failing to get i.
/. is good for you.
http://www.leapsbeyond.com/
Who has done that?
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So what you're gonna do when you have a Pentium 4 and the next one would be Pentium 5? Oh the sillyness.
While it is time to get rid of Pentium, as it is a not a new product any more, naming the new CPUs with silly names like 'D 860' or whatever will only alienate more people than attracting them to Intel. What Intel should have done is find a new name that is high tech and shows that Intel has jumped into the future. But I guess somehow Intel has to die, and making stupid moves like that is the best way to do so...
It's the right time for a change - taking any brand name past three or four versions makes it look dated, which is something Intel is particularly looking to avoid. Sad to say some of the less smart consumers buying PCs really do by on brand name.
The timing of this is interesting; it would have been much simpler to do all the brand changes in one go. This suggests that the initial branding changes went through, someone in the desktop division pulled a pet project to dump the brand and managed to get his idea agreed.
Interestingly, there already seems to be a bit of friction between Apple's and Intel's marketing departments.
Our other customers aren't boring
New Apple ad catches Intel by surprise
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
(trust me, my parents are the proud owners of a celeron *shudders*).
Why shudder?
A 'Celeron D' is perfectly adequate for 90% of home users usage, and lets not forget that the mobile CPU in the Centrino package is a 'Celeron M' - which in its self is becoming quite popular as a low-heat/low-wattage chip.
Unless of course you are referring to the older hamstrung Celerons, then yeah, they were crap.
-Jar.
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I suppose this might persuade some people who claim to dislike Intel/Pentium into buying something from Intel's new range, but really, people know Intel and Pentium. Perhaps they should have waited until people get used to their new logo before dropping the name "Pentium" - I can see a lot of people asking if this is the same Intel...
Pentium 4, Dual Core. Nice rhyming, what a waste..
There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
...Read 'Intel Inslide'.
Sometimes rebranding works wonders, but what kind of image change can a processor maker make. It isn't as if it can appeal to a new demographic.
besides people know and trust the Pentium name for being a CPU. The last thing you want to do is what the Royal Mail did in Britain, they changed their name to 'Consignia', were hated as a result by everyone, because we knew what the Royal Mail did and since privatisation RM/Consignia were getting worse. Eventually, they ended up renaming themselves back to the Royal Mail. But then I guess Intel only used the Pentium name because they couldn't patent 586.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
"Pentium" - Greek root, Latin inflexion, nothing good could have come of it. But then, when you think about it, Advanced Micro Devices is its own mission statement, while "Intel" suggests they acquire their knowledge through espionage. Proper chip companies have three letter names - IBM, AMD, VIA. Time for Intel to play catch up in this area as well.
Pining for the fjords
well, as Pentium was a made up word because they couldn't trademark a number... I'm having problems with this "D xxx" business, as it is just so snoozeworthy... so perhaps, they should use "Sexium" instead... the marketing guys could really pull the stops out with the "Sexium" name...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Give it a few months and they'll bring it RIGHT back. Everything you see on idiot PC shops (places like Dell on the high street) always go "With a pentium 4 processor!" as if it's some fantastically amazing thing. If Intel drop it, it's like Pepsi changing their brand name, and will result in the same "WTF!?" response.
Well done Intel, change the name of one of the most well whored products today. Maybe tomorrow you can start using an entirely new naming system where everything starts with 9 numbers and 3 random letters from any Arabic language.
I like muppets.
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They should use a new name. Something like "viiv", where "vi" would be "6" and "iv" could be "4" adding up to "64" which could indicate a 64-bit CPU.
Viva El VIIV!
is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?"
If you already have the incredibly recognizable "Intel", "Pentium" is - at best - just a redundant add-on, like "Benz" in a "Mercedes-Benz". But at worst it creates an image of a company that lacks innovation. Just see how much more marketing value "Centrino" has over "Pentium M". I don't want to start the holy war here (and no, I'm not sitting with my freelance gig!), but AMD naming is a much better - AMD Duron just sounds better than Intel Pentium. The former evokes durability, the latter suggests that it's just a fifth generation of some product, leading to the inevitable question of shouldn't we proceed to sixth generation at long last?
Not only is Intel dropping their famous trademarks in favor of crypting moden numbers and letter sequences, but they've also decided to drop English and use Perl and Assembler to catter better to their core* audience.
*Pardon for the pun.
Now I'll probably have to figure out if some particular three-digit number is some stripped down budget processor instead of just seeing the word celeron or pentium.
I clearly remember discussing this matter on Slashdot with others.
Pentium was just a clever name for what would have been the 586... we're now many many generations out from there. Countlessly, really, since there are many Pentium 4/M/Xeon/Extreme Edition.
Now that clock speeds aren't ramping up, you can't go 5GHz P4. Changing names is the only way to keep it semi-coherent.
I swear, if I ever kill somebody, my defense will be "the Intel jingle made me do it" ...
They've got a recognized brand name. They could probably tweak it, and not have to spend a billion dollars to make everyone know the new name. Instead the marketers win the day and get to make a new name and spend big money.
This is the sort of expense that Google won't make.
When I look at how they spend the money, I wish my fellow shareholders would ask that Intel act more like Google, and not blow our money.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
The name pentium haunted me for the first few years that I owned a computer. Being new to computers, we made a fatal choice of a Pentium with 8MB of RAM over a 486DX4-100 with 16MB of RAM. All my mates' 486s had better staying power for new release games than my hunk of crap! Upgrading to 16MB of RAM was always at the top of my wish list. And I do mean wish - from memory about AU$300 for another 8MB!
Czech language for absolute beginners
Perhaps, but looking back over the years, IMO names like this don't make it very easy for people to see how the different products relate to one another -- which ones proceeded or succeeded the others. In fact, it's a good way to obfuscate a range of products. I think the old pre-Pentium names were much more descriptive. Besides, Intel have been using 'Pentium' for far too long. They could never bring themselves move on to Sextium (har-har), Septium, Octium or anything else; nothing seemed to be as catchy as 'Pentium'. So now they've been stuck on 'Number Five' (586?.. no) ever since. Perhaps you could say that the name has long since become a victim of its own success.
For everyday average Joe, the brand name will make no difference, IMHO. But for those sales people, there's going to be a major change. After all, they now have to rewrite their entire sales pitch and print them out and stick it over the old one. Imagine the Chaos!
For those who are a bit more aware of where the name "Pent-ium" came from, I'm just relieved that Intel 80586 origin is FINALLY faded to rest in peace for new line of Intel products to pave the wave.
However lets just hope, future Intel product will create another "distruptive technology" rather than just "distruptive branding."
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
More than 11 years ago (nov '94) I happened to be the one to make the first public announcement of the Pentium FDIV bug, and over the next few weeks/months I also wrote most of the sw workaround (together with Cleve Moler, Tim Coe & Peter Tang).
At the time I believed Intel would replace the Pentium name in time for the P6 (Hexium anyone?), but instead they started the long-running series of Pentium* processor families.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Next generation brand, Sexium?
We've been able to do 5+rev-1 for a decade now -- e.g. Pentium IV is really 5+4-1=8, which means i886. How will we ever keep track now?
To the marketing dept.
Wanna beat AMD? Listen carefully......
Build a better CPU.
"On the heels of the news of AMD outselling Intel in Desktop Retail sales for two consecutive months" ...
"is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?"
Come on man, use your noggin! They are now losing sales. The pentium brand is recognisable for the WRONG reasons now. They need to rebrand or they will continue to suffer.
Many people would disagree with you here. For them the car is "a Benz" not "a Mercedes". This stems from the fact that Karl Benz founded a company. Gottlieb Daimler founded another company (DMG) and there a man named Wilhelm Maybach designed a car which was named Mercedes after the daughter of a distribution partner. Daimler and Benz joined their companies to form Daimler-Benz which is now known as DaimlerChrysler.
AMD Duron just sounds better than Intel Pentium.
Why? Because it suggests a chipmaker that's hungry like the wolf?
Just like (mostly American) car manufacturers are introducing new models roughly fashioned on their old classics: the T-Bird, the Impala, the Mustang, GT-40, and about a dozen others. Prehaps in 20 years, if Intel is still in the game, they'll release a "New Processor with Classic Styling" and call it the Pentium. Do you think that, as with Cadillacs from the 60s, we'll be able to get away from having fins (i.e., heatsinks) on the back?
I don't know why Intel bothered naming their 5th-gen chip the Pentium if they weren't going to continue the convention and name the 6th-gen chip the "Sextium". Think of the marketing possibilities!
They had to drop the Pentium name, because it means "five." The first Pentium was the successor to the 486, and Intel decided to drop the numerical identification at least partly because they coudn't trademark it (you can't trademark numbers, IIRC). So the Pentium was the chip that would have been the 586.
The name "Pentium V" or "Pentium 5" would have been a bit silly, so I don't blame them for dropping the name. But I'm very surprised they didn't develop a new brand identity. Do they even have a marketing department at Intel these days? Maybe, given someone else's recent successes in this market, they should just call their new processors "Athlon-compatible." :)
Didn't Intel take on the name Pentium instead of 80586, because they had been unable to prevent companies like Cyrix from marketing chips with 386 and 486 names?
The whole point of "Pentium" was that it could be trademarked, whereas a number, 586, could not.
is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'
Yea, because the intel logo, you know the one posted at the top of this article, doesn't have enough brand recognition. For a group of people who supposedly embrace change, sometimes these topic posters really are gun shy to it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
At the office:
-Hey boss, I just called the third party that is providing us with the critical software we use, and they said that the next release will run on Intel D, but we have only Pentium 4...
-Ok then, replace the 2000 workstations, I'm sure Dell or HP will have a good deal for us.
-Yeah, they might even take back our old Pentium 4 at no charge!
lucm, indeed.
One of the main reasons Intel changed from the convention of 286, 386, in naming their processors was because you can't trademark a number. Seems strange that they'd be returning to something that doesn't give them a unique naming convention for the marketplace.
no. no. good move. my AMD shares are doing just fine. keep it going intel!
...and I thought the floating-point math errors were bad!
=Smidge=
Anything they can do to simplify the lineup is fine by me. It was getting confusing to tell the difference between the Pentium 4, 5, HT, MMX, MMX 2, etc. I might not mind doing the research for myself, but I do if every casual user asks my opinion.
However, I can't see doing this without some sort of branding. Using "Intel" (Intel D 840) seems ok until you realize they have multiple different lineups: desktop, server, laptop, mobile, etc. Maybe they can call it "Intel Desktop 840", or "Intel Server 1000".
2006 is going to continue the trends of demoralization at Intel. You think anyone inside is all revved up about this "Leap Ahead" bullcrap? Come on..
Berto
Techinically speaking, the pentium D is the tenth generation of intel chip, so sticking with the pentium naming convention - the D in Pentium D should be for "Pentium Decadium" (hey, it rhymes!) A bit more interesting than just plain "D"
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Its a minor whine, but i find the new naming convention arbitrary and unhelpful. i grew up with the concept of MHz and FSB, and i know what they mean. i can also accept that the rate of increase will fall as we approach the limits of current tech. The change of name is exactly what used to annoy me about AMD's XP N000+ range, it was a marketing gimmick to trick idiots. BRING BACK MEGAHERTZ!
-AlexC
We usually call them Lentium. (Lent. from "lento",slow)
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On the other hand, they really should come up w/ a new name. Call it the powerblock or the razorbeak or flubber. Whatever they want. But give it a new, identifiable name to help carry on the brand identification. A D840 means so little to me I'll likely never pick one on my own. I have no clue what any number there represents as far as architecture version, speed, etc. At least most AMD chips are identifiable by their core name.
I do security
And besides all kinds of other reasons, I guess that after the couple of years that we have lived now with "Pentium 4", it would have been a tough step for Intel to move on to either "Pentium 5" or "Pentium V". It would have sounded too much like a step back in history instead of moving forward to the next thing.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
I have never, ever heard anyone call a Mercedes-Benz 'Benz', in fact, I have yet to hear anyone even calling it a 'Mercedes-Benz'. In normal conversation, the brand is called 'Mercedes'.
I can remember when "Pentium" was first used. I think the first PC processor worth mentioning was the Intel 8080, then the 8086. The 80186 was developed but never used for PC's, only in embedded kit. The 80286 was a step forward and enabled things like Windows and OS/2. The 80386 enabled protected mode memory and 32 bit processing, so the PC came of age - even today's Pentium 4s are basically clocked-up up 386's.
By the time 80386's were introduced people (and Intel) dropped the leading "80" and referred to "286's" and "386's" - and then "486's". The chips were still commodoties and AMD and Cyrix made pin-compatible versions like the Cyrix's "486DLC". With these rivals Intel wanted to distinguish their own chips - they started calling them eg "i486" but it wasn't strong enough. The next generation would have been "i586", and I believe Intel tried to register any use of "586" as a brand name, but were refused because it was just a number. Therefore they came up with "Pentium", to suggest 5. I guess we would be on "i886" today otherwise, and the word "Pentium" is now way out of sync.
So with a name like "D840" were they seem to have come back to where they were 10 years ago.
I always ask my customers about their cars. I ask them if they wouldn't like to drive the same car as their mechanic, or at a minimum, that they would trust their mechanic's advice on what is reliable and offers good performance for the dollar. I'm their mechanic, only I work on their PC. If you look under the hood of my computer, you'll find AMD; because they offer a stable, affordable, and stronger alternative to Intel. It also helps to let them know that AMD has outsold Intel in the retail channel.
Now that's one hell of a bra size! WOW.. Although with size D cup, that's gonna look very strange.
... so keep that remote within your reach.
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
1)Double click on the Clock Icon in the system tray
2)Change month to February
3)Look closely at the number which denotes the last day of the month
4)If it is 28 then switch your machines as soon as possible to AMD because Intel just 'leapt ahead'
"Buying a CPU isn't like buying a toothbrush. No one says, "I'll take that one, it sounds cool" or "I recognize that name, I want that one."
What kind of friggin idiot would buy a toothbrush because he thought it was "cool"? I make all my own teethbrush myself. I order high-performance bi-fillament (yes BI-fillament... brushing just seems smoother with two fillaments rather than just one. I know, I know, tests show that teeth get just as clean, but benchmarks can't show everything) strands, which I cut myself and attach to my custom machined titanium handle. Whenever the bristles start to wear, I swap them out for new ones and put the old ones in some of the other handles I have around the house... sometimes I like a little retro-cleaning. Anyway, it just goes to show that SOME PEOPLE are sheeple, just accepting any old brush the corporate whores present them.
And don't even get me started about floss!!!!
Yes, the brand is incredibly recognizeable.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have already placed that brand the same mental category that holds other well-known brands such as Jenn-Air, Caloric and Viking. Getting them to reassign the association may be harder than just dropping it and starting a new brand.
When I talk to Intel people, I get the impression that Intel is out of control. The most scary thing I have ever experienced is not horror films, but marketing departments like Intel's and Microsoft's that have so many people who are completely out of touch with the needs of their companies. They live in a weird disconnected world in which they fabricate fantasies about their own significance. I've met and talked with homeless people more in touch with reality than Intel or Microsoft marketing people.
For example, on July 17, 2005 I got a message from Intel with the subject "Get an Intel(R) BunnyPeople(TM) Character when you Pass Three ICC Online Tests". Apparently someone at Intel thinks that I am immature enough to be motivated by a doll! Maybe there are people that immature, but I'll bet there are few immature people who have purchasing authority.
On the other hand, I have found it impossible to get Intel to do anything right. The Intel people who aren't involved with the design of microprocessors have one "skill" in abundance: They have highly developed methods of avoiding work. I don't have time now to tell the stories about that. Here's only one:
The Intel part number for Intel products was, at that time and probably now, not available anywhere on the public web site. So, if someone wanted to go to Fry's and be sure what they were getting, they would have no way of knowing what part number they wanted.
At that time, there was a way to link Intel product names with Intel part numbers. It was necessary to get a secret password to a non-public Intel web site. I told several Intel marketing people how stupid that was. I got the standard stupid Intel marketing rationalizations about how they didn't need to do the work, or someone else was already doing it. (Which was not true.)
The significance of dropping the Pentium name has nothing to do with the word Pentium. Intel marketing people are adopting ways of naming their microprocessors that provide no information whatsoever about what a prospective customer would be getting. Presumably that makes sense in the fantasy world in which they live. Sneaky behavior is considered smart in the fake world of Intel marketing; they believe they are so superior that they can play games and their customers won't notice.
I forget right now who is CEO of Intel, but the Intel board of directors should fire him. He has no clue about how to build a sense of community.
I never understood the point of the "Intel Inside" logo anyway. If you're making a PC with second-rate parts, surely you would want to hide the fact, not announce it to the world. Imagine seeing on a restaurant menu, "Chili Con Carne made with Tesco Value Brand Minced Beef" ..... it's not exactly going to sell well, is it?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I thought Intel's lawyers learned that lesson when they went from 486 to Pentium.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
On the heels of the news of AMD outselling Intel in Desktop Retail sales for two consecutive months
*mumble*excludingdell*mumble*
and they want their joke back.
15 years ago one incredibly brilliant marketer at intel hit the peak of their career when they came up with the pentium brand and the branding strategy. That strategy has served intel incredibly well for a decade and a half. Meanwhile, younger marketers have all been chafing at the bit, waiting their turn to prove themselves working with one of the world's top brands, yet stifled by the incredible success of their predecessors. This change indicates that the people most attached to the pentium branding success have finally moved on, and this new naming system with no effective branding technique will no doubt in the long run be viewed as this new group of marketer's 'great mistake' and the disastrous failure of their careers.
Kudos to Intel's outgoing marketing team, they had a marvelous run.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Well it's about freaking time they dropped the "Pentium" name! Now they need to catch up and quickly name each new crop of CPUs according to the CORRECT naming sequence: Hexium, Septium, Octium, Nonium, Decium, and so on.
Or better yet, they can pull a George Lucas and retroactively name all the older Pentiums (P2 -> Hexium, P3 -> Septium, etc) so that the next generation of Intel quad-core processors can be named Nonium Core Quartetto(TM)
I have a feeling that neither of these would be greeted seriously by the tech world (for a processor name, anyway)...
Eating shit probably won't kill me either but that is hardly a reason to do it.
The real economy should be, it will cost us X to change names will it gives us Y in increased income where Y > X?
This is rarely the case. Instead name changes and companies re-inventing themselves are either there to hide the real problems or because some ad company has been extremely successfull at its main business, sell ads.
This is "wasted" money that could have been spent on research but research departments tell you things like, "give us 10 billion and we might have some nice tech in 10 years time". Ad companies tell you things like "give us 10 billion and everyone will love your product". That you won't have a product and that love does not equal a sale is ofcourse not mentioned.
Will this hurt Intel? Not likely but you do not spent billions just hoping not to be hurt.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I realize the Pentium name is very recognizable but when you think about it, how many flavors of Pentiums are out there right now? A ton. So many that the name Pentium really has just been kept there for name's sake alone. I mean we have dual core pentiums, single core pentiums, pentium mobiles and that's just the most current generation, things are likely to grow worse in terms of diversity as time goes on.
Yes, in the past when processors had a natural growth pattern of just speed increases it made sense to keep the name. But, these days the industry is moving more towards gradual speed increases coupled with other additional technologies/designs to improve the chip. When you reach the point where you have 15+ different 3ghz Pentiums and all operate at different performance levels, you're only really paying attention to the model number anyway at that point.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Apple were to drop their instantly recognisable "PowerBook" brand. Oh, wait...
Notice all these particularly high end car companies don't name their cars? i.e. BMW 330i
The problem they had before was they tried to have the product number stand on its own, so the marketing was focused on the 486 processor, for example. Other companies did 486s, and intel ran into issues, and so they wanted a trademarkable product name, 'Pentium'.
Now, they look at those car companies, and there is a key difference. This isn't the 'D processor', it would be the "Intel D processor" In other words, the product-specific name is too short/unintelligble to be usefully distinguishable, and the market is forced to have the Intel brand name in too. They want to enhance and leverage their brand versus the product like BMW, Lexus, et al do. If they had thought this 10 years ago, we wouldn't have the Pentium we might have been emphasized as 'The Intel 586', though 586 might have been made less predictable, useful, or generally made unable to stand on it's own as a product family identifier without the Intel name to have any clue as to what context to consider it in.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Am I the only one that thinks all marketers should be locked in a dark dungeon?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
named for the witches dance in the Middle Ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexentanz Also the name of a little piano piece by Edward MacDowell.
my guess is Intel wants to dissaociate itself from a box that has both "windows" and "pentium" associated together. Consumers have been bitten so hard by bugs over the last several years that they are combining the two in their minds now. You get some poor dude has to have his computer 'fixed' every other month at the expen$ive fixit shop because it's 'broken' from windows malwares that they think the hardware is to blame a lot of times. Remember that story about people getting so frustrated they were throwing away perfectly good machines because they couldn't keep their windows installs clean DESPITE updates and having firewalls and anti virus installed and running? to them, it's just an appliance that is broken, there is no separating soft from hardware in their minds. it doesn't exist for most people. So they update to a new machine that has "a more modern" windows and pentium processor and it happens AGAIN? this is happening by the millions now, a lot of people are on their second or third generation of computers that only work well for a week or two after they get them home, then they become "broken" again. Even the dullest crayon in the box has got to be noticing the Yugo-ness of this. The combination has turned into a "lookout! It's a lemon" for a lot of people. Intel has got to be getting tired of the guilt by association.
consumers are funny, there's a lot of subtle psychology that goes into mass market bulk sales. Once something gets a bad reputation it's hard to reverse that. People see "AMD" instead of intel or pentium, they reflect back on WQHY they are in the store upgrading from their previous win&tel machine, so they are more willing to try something different. No, it's not reasonable, but it's still reality. Consumers buy the package, OS and Box, they don't buy one or the other in most retail establishments. ANY change from constant broken-ware (identified by branding) is bound to be looking better to people now.
Now, once people get a lot of windows/AMD combo boxes and it's STILL broken, THEN they will look closer at the software part. It will take one more generation of computers to be replaced before there is mass adoption of differing OS systems, along with advanced gaming shifting more to consoles, making the necessity of home users to stick with windows become irrelevant. Games are about the only thing keeping windows on home users boxes at this point, that and the absurdity of doing your taxes/finances on some closed source expensive and utterly ridiculous windows application.
So, I expect for the next two-three years consumers will switch to AMD until there is rough parity with Intel, and it will happen once Dell and HP make it so those AMD boxes are on the shelf at walmart/office despot whatever. then, once they realise they are still being screwed because of windows, THEN we'll see the massive adoption of Linux for home users. Vista with most home level computer hardware specs is not going to run most new games better than a dedicated console, and that will kill off windows immensely in the home market, and MS will neglect XP then and try to force upgrades and people are going to revolt. They simply aren't going to be paying more for the OS then they do for the actual machine.
Interesting times.
..that "Pentium" was Intel's trademarkable name for their "586" processor (see, "penta-" means "five"; clever, eh?) and we're on what would technically be 886(?) now, I'd say it's about damned time they changed the name.
(geek joke coming up)
They're as bad as Capcom when it comes to counting.
(end geek joke - 20 points if you got it)
(the geek joke was referring to Capcom's seemingly-neverending 'Street Fighter 2' series: SF2, SF2 Championship Edition, SF2 Hyper Fighting, etc, etc...)
Come hear me sing!
Is /. really hurting for news that bad ?
... who do you think its gonna be.
:)
I don't give a rat's ass if intel drop the pentium name. There are only two CPU manufacturer, if its not AMD
If the "super duper" analyst at intel thinks thats good, let em have at it, its their money after all. and that sure aint gonna make me wanna buy intel anyway
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
What's next--a Sexium? (j/k I did RTFS)
First, Intel's primary market is not the consumer, It is the big corps who buy the procs to ship with systems. Dell, IBM, HP, Gateway, etc.
If the big guys think their marketing spins better with new names (it does, I am sure, because hering the same old name repeated makes it fade into background noise), then they will love it.
Second, the desktop retail market has been shrinking as a percentage of total desktop sales for years. Yes, it is growing in numbers, but the total market is growing faster. So it sounds great to say that AMD is gaining ground on Intel, but it is not as much ground if yu look at total desktop sales, which is all that counts. Looking at just retail sales is lying with statistics. Tell the whole story, or shut up.
Both Intel and AMD sales grow each year, a lot, but are limited solely by their production ability, which is always maxed out. And since Intel has so much more production capability already, their growth rate, although huge, is still going to be a smaller percentage of their overall volume than AMD's. Why? because AMD is forced to put more effort and money into growing. They are playing catchup.
wake up and hold your nose
Here are more opinions to add to my parent post above. I just re-visited the Intel web site. It is now possible to see a side-by-side comparison chart of Intel processors.
However, the Intel server took exactly 2 minutes 24 seconds to display the chart. It leaves a bad impression when a processor manufacturer has a slow web site. (The obvious joke the visitor may invent while waiting for the Intel server is "Maybe Intel should use AMD processors for their servers?")
Notice the abundant use of Javascript, which is especially inconvenient with tabbed browsers. To see the entire comparison, it was necessary to click inside several dainty list boxes, most requiring the visitor to scroll the list.
Note that no Intel part numbers are shown on the chart, and there is no link to them. If you want to call Tech Data and order Intel processors, the first thing the Tech Data sales representative says is, "What is the Intel part number?". In the past, at least, and probably now, there were variations of each processor that had different part numbers. So, if you don't have the part number, there is no way to know exactly what you are ordering.
Note that the power requirements for each processor are not shown on the chart. This is an old marketing trick: If there is negative information about the product, try to prevent your prospective customers from knowing it. Over the long term, of course, that destroys trust. With multi-billion dollar processor fabrication plants, Intel must be concerned about the long term. However, out of touch marketing people typically have no knowledge of technical things, and don't want any, and are not concerned about the health of their companies, maybe because they believe that could get jobs elsewhere.
I see that most of Intel's product line is still called Pentium.
My impression of Intel is "intelligent people performing badly". That kind of problem needs to be resolved at the top. Intel needs, in my opinion, a socially sophisticated CEO.
Agreed. I was checking this out a week back (and perhaps should have gotten first dibs on a story at Slashdot).
.. that still doesn't help me. I want to know how fast / powerful / capable a processor is. Who cares whether it has HT or if it's Exxxtreeeme!
Although I'm a bit of a techie but I haven't looked at processors in a while. So I visited the intel website and I found it impossible to penetrate the permutations of the set {Pentium, D, Dual, Core, HT, Extreme}. They mean nothing to me except, perhaps, sound cool.
So I figred that they MUST have some kind of comparison chart so that I can make some sense of this. Really had to dig for it, but I found this
So, er
Look at the fine print at the bottom of any product comparison page - "Intel processor numbers are not a measure of performance. Processor numbers differentiate features within each processor family, not across different processor families. See http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/ for details."
Go ahead and click it. You will find :
"The processor number is not a measurement of performance, nor is it the only factor to consider when selecting a processor.
The digits themselves have no inherent meaning, particularly when looking across processor families. For instance, 840 is not "better" than 640 simply because 8 is greater than 6.
Furthermore, linear increments between processor numbers may not indicate linear feature advancements. For example, the differences in processor features between an Intel® Pentium® M processor 760 and an Intel® Pentium® M processor 765 will not be the same as between an Intel® Pentium® M processor 765 and an Intel® Pentium® M processor 770, even though both pairs of processors are separated by an increment of five digits.
Processor numbers do not represent specific system configurations and do not replace system-level benchmarks."
WTF?!
Yes, perhaps it is a good idea to start naming processors after "features" because focus has started shifting towards better design of processors (rather than just brute force speed). But then again, I would like some solid benchmark to compare all these processors.
I say they should just measure in FLOPS and leave it be. What they have now is just sad.
... it's because they are over-heating.
lucm, indeed.
What the man said.
= /20060102/SUB/51229028/1023
Make the consumer identify with the mother brand, not the models that change yearly. Check out Lincoln's parallel path, and their explanation for it:
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID
"We think it's important to build the brand image, so changing to this alpha system really helps put Lincoln more in the spotlight as a brand," spokeswoman Sara Tatchio said. "It also indicates a certain level of luxury."
Gah, will the next Intel D model also sport a GTI version? Cause I want it bad!
<before>now</before>
And you can hear the whine of the newbie marketing exec: "But it was my first day..."
No comments about how intel is trying to say that 2006 is a leap year when its not? :)
Tony Spaeth does interesting 'break-downs' of what any new Wordmark/logo change is trying to achieve. He's clearly a guy with lots of experience in the industry (designed current Pfizer & Dow Jones logos) - reasonably enlightening. His take on the Intel job is here:t m
http://www.identityworks.com/reviews/2006/intel.h
and entertaining reviews and demolitions live here:
http://www.identityworks.com/reviews/index.htm
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
The new brand change up makes perfect sense. After a period of time brand equity stops gaining clout with consumers. Sure, 'pentium' is recognizable, but it no longer strikes consumers as the brand to be. I remember when pentium was the 'new' thing back in the ninties. It was something to brag about. But not anymore. Now, I'm not entirely sure that their choice of Intel D 840 is quite the alternative that *I* would look for--in fact it somes to digress from the 386, 486 SX/DX days of numbers and abbreviations. I think their campaign was quite successful when chaning to the 'pentium' brand. So, basically, it's a good move to go with something new, but a bad move to the alternative.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Again, more opinions to add to my parent post above:
Here are some quotes from a Javascript pop-up from the Intel web site about Intel processors. The Javascript pop-up contains regular links. If you follow them, it makes a mess of the display of information. Sorry I can't give you a link, it's a Javascript pop-up.
"Intel(R) processor numbers allow you to quickly differentiate among processors within a product family and make more informed decisions."
What that sentence says is exactly the opposite of what it means. What it means is "You cannot use Intel processor numbers to make informed decisions."
Here are some sentences under the heading "Guidelines":
"The processor number is not a measurement of performance, nor is it the only factor to consider when selecting a processor.
"The digits themselves have no inherent meaning, particularly when looking across processor families. For instance, 840 is not "better" than 640 simply because 8 is greater than 6.
Furthermore, linear increments between processor numbers may not indicate linear feature advancements."
I understand what led Intel marketing people to get themselves into this mess. However, they show no evidence that they know they have created a mess. They've created enormous product confusion, especially in retail ads.
In general, someone who now buys mostly AMD processors should not be able to go to the Intel web site and find so much wrong in just a few minutes. The visitor may think, "If there is so much wrong in the first pages I visit, what ugly revelations lie in other web pages?"
Note that I have still not seen any Intel part numbers. Those are different from processor numbers, of course. If I want to order Intel processors from a distributor, the distributor, very reasonably, wants to know the Intel part number. This is an especially big problem when ordering Intel motherboards.
Maybe Intel marketing people secretly work for AMD; they certainly discourage ordering Intel products. A while ago, after several hours of feeling hassled by stupid statements from Intel marketing people, I decided to take a longer look at AMD products.
That's because you've never been to Asia.
Besides, would you ever say "Henry Taurus"? "Soichiro Civic"? It just makes sense.
When you're falling behind in the marketplace it can sometimes be a good idea to hide your identity. The point is, you make yourself more confusable with the market leader and hence make it easier for people to buy your product by accident when they intend to buy the market leader.
-- SIGFPE
I was wondering how you could change from Pentium to D, then it hit me.
If you have dual processors, you could call them Double-D's.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
4 to 5 times more power/heat efficient?
How do you figure that? Let's take this a step at a time.
1 - Unless the chip implements "reversible" computations, ALL power must be dissipated as heat.
2 - N (65, 100, whatever) Watts will generate that much heat. Or other radiant energy (but your chip doesn't glow, does it?)
3 - So, your claim is that an AMD can deliver a computation at 1/4 (lets take the MOST conservative figure you quoted) the power. In other words, an AMD can deliver 100 Intel Watts of computation at 25 Watts.
Scaling this to more understandable terms: an AMD processor that dissipates around 25 watts is a K6-2 450. An Intel process that dissipates around 100 watts is a 3.4Gz Prescott.
4 - Last time I checked, that Intel processor was somewhat more that 4 times the performance of that AMD processor.
Care to back up your claim? Yes, an AMD processor may be more power efficient, but 4 to 5 TIMES more? I call bullshit.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The diffrence is that each year porsche releases half a dozen porsche's and intel 2 dozen processors. Not only that but the porche numbers tend to stay the same from year to year, after saying I have a 944 the next question is which year. The product placment relative to the other models 914, 911 etc stays the same, porche never released a 914 that was faster than the 911. That is not what happens at intel, this years 640 vs next years 720 compares how? With numbers to designate product lines 914 was the low end car 911 the high end car. Easy to remember, end of story... Today I can't figure out what processors are better when I look at the list and I'm in computers, it takes 10 minuites to figure out which ones are the high end and which ones are the low end, then since the low end of the high end line is slower than the high end of the low end line which one is better? If they are going to pull this crap, they need to make 4 processors a year, one desktop processor, one inexpensive desktop model, one server processor and one low power model. Then they need to call the desktop processor the same from year to year, with maybe a minor series bump to detect the diffrences between years.
Oh, how I remember speculating about Hexium and Heptium... I'm not a native English speaker, so I hadn't recognized that Hexium would not be a good name... 8-)
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
If you don't want the Pentium brand anymore... can I have your stuff?
$8.95/mo web hosting
I am surprised that not a single comment (at a threshold of 2+) explains why Intel is dropping the Pentium brand. IMHO the reason is simple. In technical circles (corporate buyers, geeks, etc) the "Pentium" brand is immediately associated with "power consuming", "overheating" and "inefficiency". Intel's reputation has been badly damaged by AMD, and they are obviously trying to fix that by releasing new and better products (Intel Viiv, Intel Core Duo, etc) and changing their marketing strategy at the same time... IOW Intel is trying to fix their image.
Losing the old brand name means that Intel appears to have something new.
People now fall asleep before reaching the "um" in "Pentium", figuring it's the same-old, same-old.
If "Pentium" is a fifth generation processor, then the next logical name should indicate a sixth generation processor. "Sexium" is just such a hot name.
is it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?
If to the average person "Pentium" is equated with being more expensive than AMD (for the same performance) then yes, it does make sense to drop the brand.
I would have stayed with a Pentium derived name
Pentium Dual -> PentDiem (as in Carpe Diem, Seize the Day )
Pentium Quad -> PentQuadium
Pentium 8-way -> PentOctium
Who knows, maybe there's a Pent-Up demand
Letter To Iran
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can semi understand the naming schemes of the original pentium(mmx) - pentium III, however the pentium 4 has been Way over due for a name change for quite some time seeing as how The original 1.3 all the way up to the newest there are VASTLY different cpus all along the way.
I saw a Dell commercial for some XPS computer. For years now, we've heard the familiar 4-marimba-note jingle at the end of every single Dell commercial, since they're Intel customer number 1. At the end of this commercial, though, was silence. I stared at the TV for a solid 10 minutes in surprise.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Apple commercial, claiming that Intel's chips have been going into dull PCs doing dull tasks for so long (perhaps "dull" is a pun on "Dell"?). I do own a 12" PowerBook, but I rolled my eyes at this, since it caters to Apple's lower customer tier (the ones who buy an Apple as a fashion statement; I bought mine since it's the most usable user-end *nix environment currently, and because I've used OS X before and liked it).
Intel's roadmap looks like progress in the works, though on the server side it'll take at least 8 months to catch up to AMD on the memory controller bandwidth alone.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Intel confirms it: Pentium is dead! AMD rejoices!
Here we go again!
This is the intended link above for Winchester versus Prescott
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
None of that quality crap matters. Form over substance is the rule of the day, and the neo-classical approach to any loss of sales is SPIN, SPIN, SPIN!
The really pathetic thing is that it works with a majority of today's consumers.
If I could have seared me conscince, I'd have been rich long ago.
There's a sucker born every minute, but there's a lobotomized, marketer-friendly consumers cranked out every nanosecond.
Anyone remember WHY they went to 'Pentium'?
Because it was ruled that x86-286-386-486-586 was just a serial number, and they couldn't trademark it.
So they altered 'pente' (5) into a trademarkable brand. Then promptly realized that 'septeium' wasn't a good
name, so the next generation was the 'pentium II'. Now, pentium 4 days, next gen would be, Pentium 5. That's
STILL trademarkable, because nobody can make a 'pentium ' anything.
But I sure as hell can make an 841 processor and one-up the name game.
P.S. Heard of AT&T Labs lately? They spent all their money re-logoing.
AT&T -> Lucent -> Aguient -> something -> nothing.
TFA cites Rob Enderle prominently within that article, therefore said article is entirely suspect and not a real news story. Even if some of these things do happen, they are being reported by folks seeking comment from fucking morons.
Fuck Enderle, and fuck any site that considers him a valid source.
I agree with you except for one thing - I believe Mr Smith is looking for a brand that he recognises even more readily, such as HP or Dell. So it doesn't really matter what is inside the box.
Umm, hey there, Intel, are you all right there? You look a little flustered...
Some water, maybe?
You SURE you don't wanna be "intel inside" anymore?
ok, ok, relax, just a suggestion. Don't worry, no one's gonna force you to be intel inside, just calm down, take it easy there...
OF COURSE you can always be pentium. Don't worry, everything's gonna be fine. Have some of these crackers and pretzels...
No no, don't say that, you'll ALWAYS be pentium.
That's crazy talk! You ARE pentium, man! You've always been Pentium!
You just wait right here, I'm gonna get you some more water, k?
Agh! That's just...that's just not right! It's Intel *INSIDE* man, not "Intel all over my new shoes"!
Calling it 'heatium' or 'toastium' would be more appropriate. Maybe that's their intent, a multipurpose CPU+toaster. Intel engineers have a thing or two to learn from AMD.
PARC - all but dead
MIPS - all but dead
SPARC - being phased out for AMD
APPLE - being phased out for Intel
Intel - next in line?
Once upon a time there was a company called Intel and it had a very popular processor family for the home PC. It was called the 486. There were 486s without a maths co processor (486SX), there were 486s (486DX) with the maths chip, there were even 486's that ran at twice motherbourd board frequency (486DX266). The were hugely popular. The chip family evoled from the 386 family, and had roots back to the 8008 processors. (Its numbers all the way down. (Appologies to the turtles.))
All this was fine for Intel, until the competition heated up, and you could byy processors that were functionally equivilent from other manufacturers like say the AMD 486, and even 586 processors that plugged into your standard 486 socket, and gave you a pentium 'class' machine on a 486 motherboard. (nice... I myself had an IMB branded one that ran like a Pentium 90, kept my DX50 going for a few more years). These 'clone' processors were cheaper and in many cases faster, they were a bargain.
So here was Intel, loosing market share because of competion, and they couldnt trade mark their processor 'numbers' because, well, you can't trademark a number. So Intels marketing gurus decided to give their next generation processors a name you could trademark;(thinking, thinking, thinking, got it!) Pentium. AMD couldnt name their processors Pentium. No-one else could use the name, and Intel was happy (happier?) again.
Now they are going back to numbers?
After establising a Market leading and internationally recognised brand?
What happened? Did the marketing department feel like a change?
Would they really make such a fundamental turnaround...? It just doesnt gel...
Just get a new name...
Sexium.
it really wise to change the logo to something that has no inherent brand identification, and to drop the incredibly recognizable 'Pentium'?"
Survey Says: No.
In Nearly All Paradigms, Shift Happens.
Should be from the "just-when-i-spent-over-1200-bucks-on-custom-icons -and-banners" that said "Powerful Intel Pentium 4 Processors"
...
Not only do they dump it. It gets slashdotted.
So now "Bargain Pentium 4 processors recently dumped by intel just after being made affordable enough to deploy in bulk" ?
With AMD at least all I have to do is change the # and model.
Rat fink *as*ards!
Here goes another $1200
Wierd Al sang: "It's all about the Pentiums, baby." Don't tell me he was wrong!
What's the world coming to!?
Any confusion arising from this will be cleared up to the consumer by the diligent, highly reliable, intelligent workers at Best Buy.