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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Ng who wrote (62405)	6/19/1999 1:56:00 AM
From: Cirruslvr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572033

My thoughts on the name "Athlon" - I don't see why people are making a big deal about not naming the K7, K7. First and foremost, a name change is needed. I say this because the "K" series of chips have everything been but perfect. The K5 had its problems and wasn't even a good chip, the K6 initially had production problems, the K6-2 ran into a "mask" problem, and the K6-III too WAY too long to get to the market. It is as if the Kryptonite weakened AMD rather than Intel. Maybe the K for AMD is Kursed. After reading this, would you want the K7 to be called K7? Some people want to keep the K7 name because the 7 implies it is a 7th generation chip. Did the Pentium II not sell well because it didn't have a reference to 6th gen technology? No. Did the Pentium sell well because because "Pent" implies 5th generation technology? I really doubt it. The consumer just knew that the Pentium was better than the 486 because the salesperson told them. Look how good switching from a number-based name to a real name has paid off for Intel. The Pentium name is fully, positively associated with Intel now and that is probably why they named the Pentium II the Pentium II. I personally think the name Athlon sounds pretty tough. The "Athl" part alludes to athleticism, which is good. I also think of Athens which I can't find a negative in. When you say the name, it doesn't require too much action like Celeron and it is short to say like K6. The "A" association of AMD and Athlon is anything but negative. This small alliteration makes it easier to remember the whole name "AMD Athlon". As far as being able to made fun of easily - why would you want to pick on the bully of the microprocessor market? We know that the reason people made fun of the original Celery was because it was such a crappy chip which took a step back in performance, completely unlike the K7 which is taking a step in the opposite direction. The only reservation I have about "Athlon" is the "on" part. This can potentially counterbalance all the good in the name. People like to associate things by name, and the "on" in Athlon is scarily the same sound as the "on" in Celeron. AMD obviously has no intention for the Athlon to be seen as the Celeron's competitor because it expected to be a better performer.