Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

out to make money, Keith, certainly Intel feels they can get a competitive advantage from the naming scheme or obviously they would not have done it. Maybe they are getting too much channel confusion from the mixed message on speed with regards to Itanium & P4, not to mention Dotham.

So Intel thinks they can make a simpler message to the buying public with this scheme. Three product families for desktop, three for mobile. They calculate that with their advertising budget they can brand their model numbers more effectively than AMD, and it should give them a competitive advantage.

However, AMD got a year head start with AMD64 processors and a lot of brand awareness. Intel is playing catch-up again, this time in marketing rather than engineering.

Now it is up to AMD to position their product offerings so that A64 and AFX get benchmarked against 700s, AXP get benchmarked against 500s and AMD makes sure it is understood that they are not aiming as low as the 300 series performance. K8 AthlonXPs have some excellent performance features and should match very well against Intel's 500 series.