Ramifications of ATI Brand Drop
But there are more issues than just the value of the brand for the particular market. For many years Intel used ATI Radeon graphics boards for public performance measurements, in addition, the large chipmaker helped to advertize Intel- and ATI-based personal computers. In fact, ATI was invited to Intel Developer Forums even after it was acquired by AMD. Will the world's largest chipmaker in some ways help to promote personal computers with "AMD Radeon", thus helping its arch-enemy to gain brand recognition? Will it invite AMD to take part of IDF? At present ATI commands 51.1% of discrete GPU market and 24.5% of all graphics adapters market, thus, ATI Radeon boards are installed into Intel-based systems and GPG's market performance is not limited to market share of AMD platforms. If ATI logo is dropped in favour of AMD's, so will likely market share of the graphics division.
It should be noted that with the dawn of the accelerated processing unit (APU) era it would make sense for AMD to sell them under one single trademark since AMD Fusion 2000 with ATI Radeon HD 5610 graphics core does not sound easy for average consumers. Still, when selling chipsets AMD barely notes the class of the integrated graphics core and it hardly will in the Fusion era.
For years both AMD and Intel "borrowed" numerous technical and marketing solutions from each other. AMD went platformization route, just like Intel, whereas the latter integrated memory controller into its microprocessors and introduced point-to-point interconnection for multi-socket platforms. Intel is unlikely to drop Havok or McAfee brands despite of the fact that Intel is among the world's most known trademarks. The reason is simple: Intel is not known for cross-platform middleware or antivirus software. Will AMD, which is not known for graphics processors, dare to drop the very well known ATI trademark?
For over a quarter of a century ATI has been a renowned graphics brand, whereas AMD has been known for microprocessors. Although Bentley is owned by Volkswagen Group, the Continental GT is still Bentley Continental GT, not Volkswagen Continental GT or Volkswagen Bentley Continental GT. Rebranding "ATI Radeon" premium graphics label into anything else will require AMD to do something it has never been truly keen of: to greatly alter its advertising and marketing initiatives so that to tell the market that the heritage of ATI is still there and the Radeon GPUs are still premium computer components, not inexpensive solutions with nice price to performance ratio. Perhaps, some things should just remain as they is?
AMD did not comment on the news-story.
They need new CPU's fast.
(Dan Rathers asks 20mmrain for News Advice) J/K I am just happy I found a story first this time and my thread didn't get closed down LMAO!
