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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'?"
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.
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.
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.
Not 100% true,
I have just "converted" some clients (3 specifically) from Intel to AMD, they where die hard "ignorant brand-name buying" users which believed that Intel is better than AMD (and VIA and any other CPU manufacturers) just because they saw more commercials on TV.
What I told them is the tale of the NN processing bits, I told them "do you remember a long time ago, when machines used Windows 3.1, well, when you changed from that to Windows 95, you used a machine that was 32 bits, instead of 16 bits. Well, that was in 1995! now AMD has new processors which are 64 bits, thus can use Windows XP 64 instead of the normal Windows XP which is still 32 bits!" .
I know my tale is not 100% accurate or complete but, I did those people a favor, they spent quite less using AMD and that also showed them that GHZ is not everything (that along with "the mother of all charts" of tom's hardware".
Of course, the computers I am talking about are setup by me, the problem with brand computers (dell, hp, gateway, etc) is that they do not offer alternatives, or the AMD alternatives always seem pretty bad
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
(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.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
It seems like the lack of replacement-name indicates that Intel is trying to reinforce the brand of the company (Intel) instead of the brand of the chip (Pentium). This is probably because their lineup has diversified.
With AMD catching up or even outperforming them in sales in many areas of the market, Intel's marketing people probably want people to buy a "genuine" Intel product, and the specifics matter less. Whether they get (what was formerly called) a Pentium, a Centrino, an Itanium or a Celeron matters less; but this brings into the linelight the perceived importance of the company producing the chip. And Intel is still recognised by the average consumer much more than AMD. Whereas they were diluting their brand by having many different chip names.
Furthermore, this throws down the gauntlet for AMD. Previously, all AMD would have to do is get reasonable mindshare for "Athlon" compared to "Pentium". Now they would need to essentially unseat the entire "Intel" brand, which is a much tougher row to hoe.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
"I got a Harley and a Porsche." Everyone understands.
"I have 944 and 883". Wha?
What about "Type 1"? Everyone knows VW Beetle. Nobody knows VW Type 1. But it's the same car...
These products bought their fame DESPITE horrible brand names, not THANKS to them.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
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.
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.