I sent the following message to John Hull a few weeks ago (I've deleted a few portions), don't know if he received it or not:
John,
I was at a weekend traveling computer show this weekend, and it was unbelievable the extent to which the sales people were pushing the AMD K-6. They clearly believed it to be a genuinely SUPERIOR chip to the Intel offerings on an absolute basis.
I think that Intel's advertising in the trade publications needs to more aggressively address this issue. I've seen evidence of perceived "superiority" of AMD chips in other places as well.
PC Magazine just gave you the ammunition, from an absolutely credible and unbiased source: from the 9/23/97 issue (vol. 16, #16), take particular look at the graphs on pages 125 and 156 (left column). These graphs are striking.
An ad headline might read "Some people think that competing processors are just as good as Intel's. Here's what PC Magazine discovered in independent tests:"
(graph) (graph) (both reproduced exactly with permission and acknowledgement)
Text below acknowledges that "if you're not doing anything very interesting to begin with, processors from the #2 or #3 vendor may perform such tasks about as uninterestingly as processors from Intel. However spending an additional 10% to 20% of the system price on a high-performance Intel Pentium II processor can yield returns of up to 100% or more in terms of the overall system's performance. And getting a 100% gain for a 10% to 20% price premium is an investment that makes sense in almost anyone's (check)book."
************** end of message text
Well, a few followup developments:
I was at another computer show today. Same story, AMD K-6 selling very well, at prices slightly ABOVE the prices for corresponding MMX Pentium chips. Pentium II's were available from SOME vendors, but are simply not selling -- price is just too high. I've seen the Intel TV ads, and frankly, I think they stink. I don't think that the general population understands the "bunny" suits, or what is being advertised, I feel that the message is BOTH unclear and not being conveyed well, in my opinion (and I have an MBA and my career has been in high-tech marketing). I haven't seen the AMD ads, but from the concept description, I think that they will be more effective than the "bunny suit" ads.
All things considered, I think that these are areas in which Intel needs to BECOME paranoid. After all, someone IS out to get us.
Barry Watzman
(VERRRRRRRRRRRRY Long Intel) |
