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>There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (

>There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (not the economics: Wintel monopoly in personal computing history, having the best server and laptop parts currently), and that despite the economics of new products and "solutions", the brand will somehow convince people to buy in. Well, as a gamer, intel (and nvidia) are just the best. I had AMD Athlon and it was an amazing processor. The modern ones just do not compare to Intel ones. AMD also pulled riddiculous shit when they stopped releasing drivers for linux on 2 or 3 years old GPU's - therefore they can go fuck themselves. Ive got 4790K and it is just great, runs cool (just a decent upsized aftermarket radiator for ~30$ - no water!), doesn't abuse my fans, will probably last me 5 or 6 years performance wise For a bulk buyer of crappy throwaway corporate laptops, the AMD might have some appeal...

lotyrin 11y ago
Exactly, even if gamers were a big market, they follow the ROI too. Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is, they sell technical things to technical people but mostly to industry.
- detaro 11y ago
  > Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is They have a surprising amount of advertising at gaming events which seemingly tries to do exactly that. Even though they are more-or-less the only option. (although AMD was (maybe still is? I'm not following that to closely) better at integrated graphics solutions which were interesting for low-end gaming, most gaming profit is probably near the high-end) Maybe to promote PC gaming in general, over other activities and specifically consoles?
  - lotyrin 11y ago
    I can't really figure it out. It's pretty mindboggling.
- toyg 11y ago
  > Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is You'd be surprised -- they already are. Their original "Intel Inside" campaign was groundbreaking and helped them immensely in reaching domination in the PC space. A lot of barely-technical consumers will not have heard of AMD or other minor competitors, but they will recognize Intel and buy accordingly. Techies don't care too much about brands, but non-techies do. Part of the problem they have today is precisely that their brand is basically worthless in the only growing segment (mobile); they must find and occupy all other niches just to stay alive, and marketing is part of that.
  - intelthrow 11y ago
    Sure, they spend on marketing, they're visible to the public, and their products are popular, those don't mean they have a brand -- a wide and loyal base of customers asking for their products by name for subjective reasons. The chips sell because they're the best. If people really wanted "Intel" (and knew what they were even buying there) and not just the cheapest / fastest / longest lasting device regardless of how or why it has those properties, Intel's attempts to push into mobile despite failing to hit the required price/performance/power points might have worked like management always pretended it was going to. They have a very polished image and spend plenty to get broad awareness. Plenty of visibility across all segments, it's not that they failed to capture mobile end-customer's eyeballs, it's that they failed to deliver a mobile chip with an ROI to mobile OEMs. The most fervent Intel fanboy can't buy your Meego/Moblin/Whatever(Maybe people will forget it failed if we rename it every year)-powered Intel-chip phone if it never hits the market because it fails to have a day's battery life and the OS is basically vaporware (we can't ship updates for existing systems, we're too busy with politics, switching UI toolkits and starting over). Intel pays to try to build a brand and labors under the assumption that means it has one (for instance, wanting to build their own Platform [SOC+OS+App store] thinking the brand will pull it to market despite reality, instead of just accepting Android from the beginning) but it simply doesn't. All the marketing money looks to be just a bonfire. Back when AMD got a foothold and was able to be competitive on price, people bought them, I don't remember seeing any AMD commercials. If people only love you in the categories where you're objectively the best, maybe it's not because you have the cool circuit pattern branding, threw all those parties and bought those super bowl spots. No matter how much they spend and pretend to be a consumer brand, it just doesn't matter one bit outside the ROI for OEMs and ISVs, since those are Intel's customers, they are only ones making buying decisions of any consequence, and they're never going to buy a part that's detrimental to their own bottom line. Intel Inside partnership was in my opinion about OEMs fleecing the marketing spend for a reduced bill of materials. The sticker meant nothing, no consumers really cared. Enthusiasts only cared when Intel meant it was a better chip, only a minority of that enthusiast minority would prefer a weaker Intel chip over an alternative. If I were to call my grandmother (70s), mother (50s) and niece (20s) and ask them if they'd prefer a computer with an Intel chip in it, I suppose they'd say yes (and as much as my ego might want that to be because I worked there, it's most probably the ads). However I happen to know that two of the three of the CPUs in question are AMD. Why? I don't know, but the relatives all buy cheap HP or Dell Windows machines (choosing those OEM brands despite better options, real brand effect) on a whim (a.k.a when the last computer's OS installation became unbearable) from the nearest Best Buy (picking that retail brand despite better options, a brand effect) and the OEM chose an AMD part (probably for margin reasons, creating lines of products for undiscriminating consumers) and these relatives didn't notice or didn't care (no brand effect). I wonder if I asked them if their computer had an Intel CPU, if they might even think that they do. I'll try that next time I see them. No matter how hard Intel pretends they're like organizations with similar marketing spend, they simply don't have a brand like those do: there's no verticals and no consumers aside from self-built-PC enthusiasts, and for consumers the latter are quite a touch more objective than those in fashion or apparel.

lotyrin 11y ago

Exactly, even if gamers were a big market, they follow the ROI too. Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is, they sell technical things to technical people but mostly to industry.

detaro 11y ago
> Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is They have a surprising amount of advertising at gaming events which seemingly tries to do exactly that. Even though they are more-or-less the only option. (although AMD was (maybe still is? I'm not following that to closely) better at integrated graphics solutions which were interesting for low-end gaming, most gaming profit is probably near the high-end) Maybe to promote PC gaming in general, over other activities and specifically consoles?
- lotyrin 11y ago
  I can't really figure it out. It's pretty mindboggling.
toyg 11y ago
> Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is You'd be surprised -- they already are. Their original "Intel Inside" campaign was groundbreaking and helped them immensely in reaching domination in the PC space. A lot of barely-technical consumers will not have heard of AMD or other minor competitors, but they will recognize Intel and buy accordingly. Techies don't care too much about brands, but non-techies do. Part of the problem they have today is precisely that their brand is basically worthless in the only growing segment (mobile); they must find and occupy all other niches just to stay alive, and marketing is part of that.
- intelthrow 11y ago
  Sure, they spend on marketing, they're visible to the public, and their products are popular, those don't mean they have a brand -- a wide and loyal base of customers asking for their products by name for subjective reasons. The chips sell because they're the best. If people really wanted "Intel" (and knew what they were even buying there) and not just the cheapest / fastest / longest lasting device regardless of how or why it has those properties, Intel's attempts to push into mobile despite failing to hit the required price/performance/power points might have worked like management always pretended it was going to. They have a very polished image and spend plenty to get broad awareness. Plenty of visibility across all segments, it's not that they failed to capture mobile end-customer's eyeballs, it's that they failed to deliver a mobile chip with an ROI to mobile OEMs. The most fervent Intel fanboy can't buy your Meego/Moblin/Whatever(Maybe people will forget it failed if we rename it every year)-powered Intel-chip phone if it never hits the market because it fails to have a day's battery life and the OS is basically vaporware (we can't ship updates for existing systems, we're too busy with politics, switching UI toolkits and starting over). Intel pays to try to build a brand and labors under the assumption that means it has one (for instance, wanting to build their own Platform [SOC+OS+App store] thinking the brand will pull it to market despite reality, instead of just accepting Android from the beginning) but it simply doesn't. All the marketing money looks to be just a bonfire. Back when AMD got a foothold and was able to be competitive on price, people bought them, I don't remember seeing any AMD commercials. If people only love you in the categories where you're objectively the best, maybe it's not because you have the cool circuit pattern branding, threw all those parties and bought those super bowl spots. No matter how much they spend and pretend to be a consumer brand, it just doesn't matter one bit outside the ROI for OEMs and ISVs, since those are Intel's customers, they are only ones making buying decisions of any consequence, and they're never going to buy a part that's detrimental to their own bottom line. Intel Inside partnership was in my opinion about OEMs fleecing the marketing spend for a reduced bill of materials. The sticker meant nothing, no consumers really cared. Enthusiasts only cared when Intel meant it was a better chip, only a minority of that enthusiast minority would prefer a weaker Intel chip over an alternative. If I were to call my grandmother (70s), mother (50s) and niece (20s) and ask them if they'd prefer a computer with an Intel chip in it, I suppose they'd say yes (and as much as my ego might want that to be because I worked there, it's most probably the ads). However I happen to know that two of the three of the CPUs in question are AMD. Why? I don't know, but the relatives all buy cheap HP or Dell Windows machines (choosing those OEM brands despite better options, real brand effect) on a whim (a.k.a when the last computer's OS installation became unbearable) from the nearest Best Buy (picking that retail brand despite better options, a brand effect) and the OEM chose an AMD part (probably for margin reasons, creating lines of products for undiscriminating consumers) and these relatives didn't notice or didn't care (no brand effect). I wonder if I asked them if their computer had an Intel CPU, if they might even think that they do. I'll try that next time I see them. No matter how hard Intel pretends they're like organizations with similar marketing spend, they simply don't have a brand like those do: there's no verticals and no consumers aside from self-built-PC enthusiasts, and for consumers the latter are quite a touch more objective than those in fashion or apparel.