AMD kills off ATI brandname, finally

[Yousuf Khan]

Goodbye ATI - AMD now the big name in graphics cards - News - PC Authority
"Way back in 2006 AMD shocked the technology world by acquiring Canadian
graphics company Array Technologies Inc (ATI). Since that time ATI's
Radeon graphics cards have become one of AMD's major strengths, thanks
largely to the company's CPUs slipping behind Intel's in the performance
stakes.

Since the acquisition AMD has continued to use the ATI brand for its
Radeon graphics cards. That changes today, as AMD announces that the
next generation of graphics from the company will not use the ATI branding.

Instead the cards will be labelled AMD Radeon. Despite the name change
the logos will be remarkably similar to that used currently. They will
still bear ATI's trademark red colouring but the ATI has been replaced
by AMD."
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/230418,goodbye-ati---amd-now-the-big-name-in-graphics-cards.aspx

 

[Mike S.]

Goodbye ATI - AMD now the big name in graphics cards - News - PC Authority
"Way back in 2006 AMD shocked the technology world by acquiring Canadian
graphics company Array Technologies Inc (ATI). Since that time ATI's
Radeon graphics cards have become one of AMD's major strengths, thanks
largely to the company's CPUs slipping behind Intel's in the performance
stakes.

Since the acquisition AMD has continued to use the ATI brand for its
Radeon graphics cards. That changes today, as AMD announces that the
next generation of graphics from the company will not use the ATI branding.

Instead the cards will be labelled AMD Radeon. Despite the name change
the logos will be remarkably similar to that used currently. They will
still bear ATI's trademark red colouring but the ATI has been replaced
by AMD."
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/230418,goodbye-ati---amd-now-the-big-name-in-graphics-cards.aspx

For those who remember, it's somewhat miraculous that ATI survived the
video code affectionately known as the "VGA Blunder".

 

[Intel Guy]

AMD announces that the next generation of graphics from the company
will not use the ATI branding.

I don't know why these major brands are being killed like this.

ATI has incredible marketing value. It takes years and lots of $$$ to
build a recognizable brand name like this, and to kill it off is just
stupid.

They could have continued to market AMD video chips and boards under
it's own name AND ATI simultaneously and have the potential to multiply
your exposure to purchasers and end-users by having multiple brands.
This was done by the auto industry during the 1960's until the
mid-2000's.

Delta did the same thing recently when it killed the Northwest brand
when the two airlines merged.

Oracle is doing the same with Sun (by the way, where is Java for the
iPhone and Touch?)

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I don't know why these major brands are being killed like this.

How else to destroy value?

ATI has incredible marketing value. It takes years and
lots of $$$ to build a recognizable brand name like this,
and to kill it off is just stupid.

They could have continued to market AMD video chips and
boards under it's own name AND ATI simultaneously and have
the potential to multiply your exposure to purchasers and
end-users by having multiple brands. This was done by the
auto industry during the 1960's until the mid-2000's.

Delta did the same thing recently when it killed the
Northwest brand when the two airlines merged.

Oracle is doing the same with Sun (by the way, where is
Java for the iPhone and Touch?)

Dinosaur-brains kill brands to show the stock anal ysts they are
"vigorously persuing synergies" (ie cutting costs irrespective
of profit). The real reason is territorial dominence. Can't
leave the vanquished unbowed.

-- Robert

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I don't know why these major brands are being killed like this.

ATI has incredible marketing value. It takes years and lots of $$$ to
build a recognizable brand name like this, and to kill it off is just
stupid.

Well, waiting 4 years to do it is not exactly a rash decision. I guess
their marketing surveys showed that the AMD brand name was improved when
being associated with the video cards. And the video card brand
recognition also went up when associated with the AMD name. Both brands
helped each other. However, the ATI name was no longer needed in the
middle, they could go straight from AMD to Radeon without needing to
also say ATI.

Also there was talk that the reason that AMD didn't kill the ATI name
way back when it first purchased ATI was because they didn't want any
conflict with Intel when marketing video cards. Because as soon as Intel
sees the name "AMD", it acts like a bull seeing a red cape, everything
with that name is a target. For example, when AMD had a flash memory
division, now Spansion, Intel targeted it mercilessly with flash price
wars; once AMD spun it off, Intel lost all interest in flash too and
sold its division off to Micron. Now that Intel has had its horns
chopped off, AMD is feeling freer to go ahead and do more things under
its own name.

They could have continued to market AMD video chips and boards under
it's own name AND ATI simultaneously and have the potential to multiply
your exposure to purchasers and end-users by having multiple brands.
This was done by the auto industry during the 1960's until the
mid-2000's.

You mean like GM with all of its brand names that have had to be
hatcheted down? Goodbye Oldsmobile, so long Pontiac, never knew ya
Saturn, and good riddance Hummer. Or Chrysler and its Plymouth brand,
and Ford and its Mercury brand.

Delta did the same thing recently when it killed the Northwest brand
when the two airlines merged.

Oracle is doing the same with Sun (by the way, where is Java for the
iPhone and Touch?)

Oracle just sued Google for putting Java into Android, BTW.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Bill Davidsen]

I don't know why these major brands are being killed like this.

ATI has incredible marketing value. It takes years and lots of $$$ to
build a recognizable brand name like this, and to kill it off is just
stupid.

That's not clear. I certainly don't see any benefit to dropping a well known
brand name, and I can't say that it improves my perception of either the company
or the product. Generally when a known brand is killed it's because the new
owner wants to walk away from the practices associated with that brand. In the
case of Oracle and Sun, killing the Sun brand makes it clear that the vale of
good will has changed. In the case of ATI, for years I leaned toward them over
Nvidia because I had fewer problems with the product. You know, those case where
something odd happens but you can't really reproduce it to submit it as a bug?

Too bad.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

That's not clear. I certainly don't see any benefit to dropping a well
known brand name, and I can't say that it improves my perception of
either the company or the product. Generally when a known brand is
killed it's because the new owner wants to walk away from the practices
associated with that brand. In the case of Oracle and Sun, killing the
Sun brand makes it clear that the vale of good will has changed. In the
case of ATI, for years I leaned toward them over Nvidia because I had
fewer problems with the product. You know, those case where something
odd happens but you can't really reproduce it to submit it as a bug?

Difference is that Oracle is killing off the Sun brandname right away,
whereas AMD kept it around for 4 years largely intact and even nurturing
it. It doesn't sound like AMD is trying to walk away from the ATI name,
whereas Oracle is definitely trying to walk away from the Sun name.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Robert Myers]

Difference is that Oracle is killing off the Sun brandname right away,
whereas AMD kept it around for 4 years largely intact and even nurturing
it. It doesn't sound like AMD is trying to walk away from the ATI name,
whereas Oracle is definitely trying to walk away from the Sun name.

The only reason Sun hasn't been renamed "Larry Elllison" is because
Oracle is a well-known pseudonym for Larry Ellison.

The only time you can engage in this kind of chatter and not sound
silly is when either you are being paid hundreds of dollars an hour as
a marketing consultant or to do so or you are writing a PhD thesis at
a business school with the aim of making even more money writing and
lecturing on similar topics.

Robert.

 

[Bill Davidsen]

Difference is that Oracle is killing off the Sun brandname right away,
whereas AMD kept it around for 4 years largely intact and even nurturing
it. It doesn't sound like AMD is trying to walk away from the ATI name,
whereas Oracle is definitely trying to walk away from the Sun name.

I think they are, not to disavow it, but in hopes that there will be a single
AMD brand in the public perception, perhaps. As I noted, I disavow understanding
of how this could help AMD, that doesn't make it wrong, but I agree with the
original post to which I replied, it's not clear how this can help.

Having ATI as a separate brand allows it to be sold off the next time they
re-invent themselves. :-(

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I think they are, not to disavow it, but in hopes that there will be a
single AMD brand in the public perception, perhaps. As I noted, I
disavow understanding of how this could help AMD, that doesn't make it
wrong, but I agree with the original post to which I replied, it's not
clear how this can help.

It probably helps both the CPU and GPU divisions to boost each other up
in lean times when one might be doing better than the other.

Having ATI as a separate brand allows it to be sold off the next time
they re-invent themselves. :-(

I doubt that AMD is going to be able to sell that off anymore, CPUs and
GPUs are becoming one. But anyways, if they did want to sell it off,
it's not so hard to sell it off with a new name.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rick Jones]

It probably helps both the CPU and GPU divisions to boost each other
up in lean times when one might be doing better than the other.

Are CPUs and GPUs really going to be all that much out of phase with
one another?

rick jones

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Are CPUs and GPUs really going to be all that much out of phase with
one another?

rick jones

Well, they have been up until now. I assume that with GPUs being
integrated into CPUs now, that those GPUs will get behind or leap ahead
in lockstep with the CPUs. But discrete GPUs might still be going for a
little while, so those might have their own development tracks and
they'll be ahead or behind their own respective competition from Nvidia,
etc.

Yousuf Khan

 

[GMAN]

Well, waiting 4 years to do it is not exactly a rash decision. I guess
their marketing surveys showed that the AMD brand name was improved when
being associated with the video cards. And the video card brand
recognition also went up when associated with the AMD name. Both brands
helped each other. However, the ATI name was no longer needed in the
middle, they could go straight from AMD to Radeon without needing to
also say ATI.

Also there was talk that the reason that AMD didn't kill the ATI name
way back when it first purchased ATI was because they didn't want any
conflict with Intel when marketing video cards. Because as soon as Intel
sees the name "AMD", it acts like a bull seeing a red cape, everything
with that name is a target. For example, when AMD had a flash memory
division, now Spansion, Intel targeted it mercilessly with flash price
wars; once AMD spun it off, Intel lost all interest in flash too and
sold its division off to Micron. Now that Intel has had its horns
chopped off, AMD is feeling freer to go ahead and do more things under
its own name.


You mean like GM with all of its brand names that have had to be
hatcheted down? Goodbye Oldsmobile, so long Pontiac, never knew ya
Saturn, and good riddance Hummer. Or Chrysler and its Plymouth brand,
and Ford and its Mercury brand.

You can thank that ****er obama buying up GM for losing those brand names.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

You can thank that ****er obama buying up GM for losing those brand names.

No, you can thank GM for turning Pontiac into a brand that meant
"plastic body crap" and for ever creating a Hummer brand other than the
civilianized HUMVEE. And Olds and Plymouth were gone long before Obama
was president.

I've got very little good to say about the marionette in chief, but I
prefer to blame him for things he's guilty of. There's plenty of that
without trying to pin GM and Chrysler's brand mistakes on him.

 

[krw]

You mean like GM with all of its brand names that have had to be
hatcheted down? Goodbye Oldsmobile, so long Pontiac, never knew ya
Saturn, and good riddance Hummer. Or Chrysler and its Plymouth brand,
and Ford and its Mercury brand.

What happened to Mercury? It was there this morning.

http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/

 

[Trent]

No, you can thank GM for turning Pontiac into a brand that meant
"plastic body crap"

And boy did they blow it on the return of the GTO. Think of what it could
have been had they made it more retro like the Mustang and Challenger.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

And boy did they blow it on the return of the GTO. Think of what it could
have been had they made it more retro like the Mustang and Challenger.

What really hurts is that was (by all accounts) an excellent car.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

What happened to Mercury? It was there this morning.

http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/

For has announced that Mercury is being discontinued; I don't remember
the timetable. Like Plymouth, it's been pretty much on life support for
years and they're now turning off the machine.

Actually, as I look around, Ford appears to have abandoned the high-end
American luxury market to Cadillac and moved Lincoln down into the
former Mercury territory, so Mercury becomes pretty much redundant.

 

[krw]

For has announced that Mercury is being discontinued; I don't remember
the timetable. Like Plymouth, it's been pretty much on life support for
years and they're now turning off the machine.

Actually, as I look around, Ford appears to have abandoned the high-end
American luxury market to Cadillac and moved Lincoln down into the
former Mercury territory, so Mercury becomes pretty much redundant.

Ah, I hadn't heard that. Thanks. A friend has an LM dealership. I bet he's
not happy.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

What happened to Mercury? It was there this morning.

http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/

It's gone up here in Canada. If it comes back, it's usually just a one
off vehicle here or there.

Yousuf Khan