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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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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.
(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
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.
Read my sig if you like, but I'll never see yours, thanks to Discussions, Viewing, Disable sigs...
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?
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.
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"
Yeah, because no-one owns a Harley 883 or a Suzuki GSX-R or a Porsche 944...those brand names are just confusing. And no-one ever bought a transistor with a geeky name like BC109 either ;-)
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." :)
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.
I heard a different story. They developed the 486 successor and told it to display the results of 486+100.
It displayed 585.99999999 and they decided it's not a good CPU name, so instead they called it Pentium.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
"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.
Now that's one hell of a bra size! WOW.. Although with size D cup, that's gonna look very strange.
Don't worry. To ordinary plebs, you got an Intel inside, and here's your Pentium on that CD, with product key and user manual. Microsoft Pentium Vista, successor to Windows.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
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 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.
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
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.
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.
..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!
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.
What the man said.
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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>
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.