There was a time when people cared a lot about the microprocessors in their PCs–a bit like teenagers once bragged that their Impala had a 450-horsepower V8 engine under the hood. Advanced Micro Devices seems to be betting those days are over.
The Silicon Valley company–perennial underdog to Intel in the microprocessor wars–has been sending out signals that it wants to move away from marketing such chips based on how fast they are. Customers don’t need to know that kind of techie stuff–what’s more important is what desktops with one of its chips does, what chores it’s best suited for. A new marketing campaign based on that concept, dubbed Vision, is expected to be announced Thursday.
To some extent, the strategy smacks of capitulation. AMD, which from 2003 to 2006 boasted a performance edge over Intel, subsequently fell behind because of its own execution issues and Intel picking up its game. The problem was exacerbated by a line of Intel chips, code-named Nehalem, that matched one of AMD’s key technical advantages and added other design benefits.That technology has been available since November to buyers of high-end desktop PCs, willing to pay for a chip called Core i7 that lists for $999. But Intel on Monday introduced versions of that speedy chip line that list at the more mainstream price points of $284 to $562, and a model called iV that starts at $196. Those chips add to the pressures on AMD in desktop PCs.
At the same time, Intel shook up the portable market with an ultra-small chip called Atom that helped fuel the market for netbooks, low-end laptops that frequently cost less than $300. AMD hasn’t much played in that fast-growing market.
But AMD does have one advantage, brought about by its costly purchase of ATI Technologies several years ago–chips that excel at high-performance graphics and related chores such as running high-quality video. AMD executives argue that those media-heavy chores are becoming more and more important to users than the general-purpose number crunching that is usually handled by microprocessors.
Meanwhile, Intel’s own messaging has become complicated by a proliferation of brand names. Though the company in June pledged to simplify the mix, for the moment it retains the brands Atom, Celeron, Pentium and Core (the latter mainly referring to chips that have the core circuitry of more than one processor). Intel also seems wedded to the idea of trying to get customers to search out computers based on its technology, an approach known as ingredient branding.
Some think AMD can endear itself to PC makers by playing down its own technology while helping customers choose the right laptop. AMD marketing materials might suggest that one be good for watching regular videos, one might be good for watching high-definition videos and a third might be good at making high-definition videos.
The customer “doesn’t care that it’s AMD” supplying chips for the machine. It’s very zen. AMD has to deny itself to realize itself.
Update: In a news release describing the Vision effort early Thursday, AMD said new notebooks based with its technology are expected to be widely available on retail shelves and online during the holiday buying season, timed to the release of the Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft.
The company said it will use three basic terms–Vision Basic, Vision Premium and Vision Ultimate–to describe a range of capabilities from simply creation of digital content to content creation. In other words a classic “good, better, best” kind of labeling. In the first quarter of 2010, AMD plans to introduce a fourth level, Vision Black, to apply to high end gaming PCs that use its technology.
