I think this could be good if they do it right. As long as it doesn't turn into something similar to the 'Vista Capable' label debacle, I think it'll be all right.
It certainly would help me when I'm advising people who don't know/care what raw specs mean. I can say "Well, you should look for a system with either the plain VISION or maybe Premium VISION. That should get you where you want to be."
This strategy will not sell me a computer. But it might work for the average consumer that makes majority of the market. What I wonder is the color AMD is going red I guess, what happened to green?
Go to your local Best Buy, stand around in the computer isle walk up to a few shoppers and just say "hey, do you have any clue what the difference is between Intel and AMD?" Listen to the uninformed and you will immediately know why AMD needed to do something drastic on the marketing side. Heck, I'm not saying this for certain but I give it a better than 50/50 shot that the Best Buy associate won't even have a clue, and that has been killing AMD for years.
You can't sell PC's based on a raw number anymore, its more nuanced, its more about the balance of the experience and what the consumer expects. Want a glorified word processor with low res web browsing capability, buy an Intel atom based netbook, want a rich multimedia experience in a highly portable package, that's AMD's Congo, Want to game on your portable computer that's AMD Tigris with the ultimate vision stamp, which to you and me means it has a 40nm 48xx mobile graphics solution, but since joe blow consumer only wants to know if it will play the new WOW expansion high res at a solid frame rate, calling it Vision Ultimate and advising that this is the enthusiast gamers choice should be adequate for them to understand what they are being promised by the vendor.
Is there an ignore function in the forum? Is there going to be one in Vanilla? Pretty pretty please? I don't know how much more rampant fanboyism I can stand.
This initiative isn't for me - I like to know what's in my computers - but like Mirage said, it might be a Joe Schmo success. There's a reason mob mentality exists.
I just need Vision Basic, Vision Home, Vision Professional, Vision Enterprise. If the pairing of Vision Basic and Win 7 Ultimate existed, in theory it would be a huge success! Also, if I have an AMD system, could I upgrade to Vision Premium at 1/2 the price if I preorder?
My saying AMD's old marketing strategy has been less effective than they would like is not being fanboyish.
Seriously though, go to your local Best Buy, without saying anything about who you are, what you do or do not know, ask a few regular shoppers in the computer isle if they have a clue about the difference between AMD and Intel? I bet you at least one tells you that AMD isn't compatible with Windows, another tells you that AMD is a cheap knock off brand that normally fails to work after the first few months, another says that AMD is a completely foriegn company while Intel is all made in the USA, another will just shrug and say please god, I was hoping someone would tell me the same thing.
Be more specific, ask the clerk, hey man, what is better for gaming, Intel or AMD, and without considering the balance of the system spec, I would bet nine out of ten the guy just spits out Intel as common misinformation.
As a social experiment, try it sometime, its enlightening. Most folks don't know their front side bus from their discrete graphics card, all they perceive is that Intel is quality, and AMD is junk, and it's not fanboyish for me to say that AMD is NOT JUNK!!!
I do it each and every time I sell build someone a system. I'm speaking from experience, I know what the common consumer mentality is, and what an uphill battle AMD has to fight. This is why the Vision initiative is happening, will it work? I honestly don't know, to be a little fanboy now.... I hope it does, but it will only work when combined with compelling system packages which AMD does have with Dragon, Congo and Tigris.
Want a glorified word processor with low res web browsing capability, buy an Intel atom based netbook, want a rich multimedia experience in a highly portable package, that's AMD's Congo, Want to game on your portable computer that's AMD Tigris with the ultimate vision stamp
You guys are always a bit myopic about who actual computer users are.
People like us: .
The rest of the world that buys computers (and makes actual money for AMD and Intel): .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. and so on.
We're like, the tiniest drop in the bucket for actual sales. Fanboyism matters naught.
I went with my dad to Microcenter to buy a computer a few weeks ago. This branding thing would have worked for him. Instead, he had to contend with specs vs. what the commissioned (and ignorant) salesguy was telling him. I sat back and watched, as a sort of academic exercise, to see how "real people" buy computers.
The complete and utter ignorance on both sides was the key factor: My dad was simply trying to communicate what he didn't even know HOW to communicate (I want to be able to put my pictures online and meet people I went to Vietnam with, and check my email) to someone who only knew how to communicate what would benefit him the most financially (We're running a special on these HP desktops, they're really fast with a ton of memory).
I finally stepped in before my dad bought a machine that he didn't need and made the decision for him.
The problem is that consumers (and we, my friends, are NOT consumers) DO NOT HAVE ANY CLUE what they are buying. From their perspective, most of these computers will do the same exact thing.
AMD has the right idea. NOT telling consumers that their X8348 is 23.5ffz with 5.22 clickawiggs and 99.2 Dekabrpz, which can be upgraded to a 3344GGRT-X dualsplit. Instead they'll be saying "Want to chat with family? This one. Want to make videos? this one. Want to play games? this one."
It's brilliant for them. It's not meant for us.
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LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited September 2009
Smart. The average consumer cares much more about branding and reputation than specifications. I think AMD is on to something here. Sure the socker mom at Wal Mart or the teenager at BestBuy will pay some attention to the fine print, but the majority of consumers will be associating brand and gadget names to opinions of their friends and advertising they've seen.
Beyond just marketing, it actually is usually more important for a consumer to know about a platform's reputation and general capabilities than any particular part inside the platform.
LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited September 2009
Snark, no, this is a forest-trees marketing initiative. This is not about AMD CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, or Intel anything. This is about platform marketing, building a platform/system brand name that the average consumer can latch onto. The consumer wants to know what the system in the box will do in general terms, a la Prime's dad as so well illustrated in the post above. I would love to be able to advise non-technically oriented friends and family on platforms (and recognizable platform names!) rather than attempt to explain characteristics and performance parameters of individual parts. Most people just don't give a crap about the technical end. They just want to know if it will play their music poorly or well, whether their games will be snappy or laggy. If they do have a technical opinion, it's probably bogus, based off comments from a dumbass friend or a pithy TV commercial.
Thrax, I honestly don't understand your comment, "bizarre topics." What do you mean?
I know they're focusing on a platform - I was just pointing out that "graded" parts weren't magically new. It's a similar initiative to Intel's "stars" (just grade performance, don't talk about the actual chip) applied to the whole system, which AMD can afford to do given its in-house graphics and chipset creation abilities.
Like I said - it's not for me, but it'll probably work out for the Schmos.
It seems like they want to go the route of the auto industry. The average person doesn't care about the specific guts in their car so companies give them information on what they care about such as gas mileage, warranties, and luxuries. You're always going to have the gear head who wants to know about horse power, gear ratios, and torque but that is a small subset of the industry.
It's an interesting approach for the computer industry and it could work. The Intel star system quickly came to mind when I first read this article.
You also have to understand that even grading performance doesn't mean anything to a consumer. Faster? Why does a computer need to be faster? I can check my gmails and get to the google and the "E" works, right?
The difference on a modern computer between a 1.6ghz dual core and a 2.8ghz quad core is completely meaningless to consumers, unless it directly affects what they want to do. If you tell my dad he needs a "4" star computer to do the webcam thing, but a "2" star computer won't, then that ACTUALLY MEANS something to him, and he'll make an informed decision.
Be more specific, ask the clerk, hey man, what is better for gaming, Intel or AMD, and without considering the balance of the system spec, I would bet nine out of ten the guy just spits out Intel as common misinformation.
Or because it's better.
0
LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited September 2009
applied to the whole system, which AMD can afford to do given its in-house graphics and chipset creation abilities.
Exactly! AMD can run with this. It's not really about specific performance levels, as those change all the time and can be so usually misrepresented. It's all about getting consumers to associate brands with levels of experience - will it do a good of what I want it to do.
The advanced gamers, high performance system builders, and those in the niche groups such as [EMAIL="Folding@Home"]Folding@Home[/EMAIL] and high-end graphics design will still pay attention to detailed specifications, but we aren't that important in the grand scheme of multi-billion dollar computer tech sales.
I think that this motion will be great for AMD's performance. As probably one of the closer members on the forum to the average consumer, I remember my absolute confusion a few years ago when I was trying to order a laptop for school. I had no idea what anything was, the sales people were unhelpful, and my friends knew little either. I ended up spending 1200 on a Dell Inspiron 6000 piece of crap with a 1.3 celeron processor and a half a gig of ram (I KNOW). It was horrible, and it didn't do what I wanted. If, then, someone had just said "Oh hey, look at this vision: school, which will be great for processing documents, browsing the web, and is light so it can be easily portable" it would have made my life SO much better. And I tried to do resesarch- I was just clearly doin it rong.
Thrax, I honestly don't understand your comment, "bizarre topics." What do you mean?
Branding topics that are irrelevant to almost every user of this forum (specific emphasis) receive a deluge of comments, while talk about a WHOLE NEW GENERATION of video cards and a brand new DirectX specification receives very little response.
Looks to me like there's a good number of comments on that link, but beyond that - it's more expensive video cards. What's so exciting about that? It's the same pricepoints we've seen before.
This is newish. And we like to argue and speculate on the common folk.
I don't think this kind of branding (Standard, Premium, Ultimate) is very helpful to the average consumer. What does Premium mean? Will it play games or enable editing videos or store a lot of pictures? Will Utimate do all of the above and some more? So does this mean Standard can not do anything other than browsing the Internet and email?
Intead of Premium level, if they had given optional software/hardware combination packages for the Standard level like Sound Studio, Video Editing, Gaming Level 1, Gaming Level 2, ... , it would have been more useful, IMHO
It is a step in the right direction but given AMD's past of keeping products secret by not having any solid marketing or branding strategies, I don't see this going far. Really, their Idea of marketing seem to be just press releases.
Another thing I worry about is how are they going to keep the PC resellers in line and ensure manufactures won't raise premiums to ultimate's? How will AMD stop companies from hurting a good cpu and video cards performance by mating them with slow memory and hardrives? AMD has a history of being gentle with OEM's. It really needs to start acting like what it is, the second largest cpu company in the world and start throwing its weight around. AMD just needs to grow up and stop acting like a 35 year old living at it's parents house.
Look at Hyundai in the mid 90's. It was car you hated. I remember riding a bus to the mall and sneering at them on the way. You couldn't have paid me to trade my bus transfer for one. Hyundai turned itself around by offering the best warranty in the industry, 10 year 100,000. AMD should pull off something like that. Just circumvent the PC oem's warranty and make every seller state on the box 5 year CPU and video card warranty from AMD. Industries best warranty or something like that. Most people over 30 like long warranties. It make a purchase so much more reassuring.
Lastly, they need some damn commercials. I know they can't compete with intel on every channel but at least go after some target audiences. Something like MTV, spike TV, and life or oxygen. And not just for a week but keep it going. I hate intel but every time I see an Intel inside sticker my subconscious plays that little catchy tune at the end of one of their commercials and I smile. AMD needs to win the hearts of people through marketing.
Lastly, AMD has owned ATI for 4 years now. Why am I still seeing ATI everywhere? It's like they are keeping the ATI name alive to sell it off one day. AMD's video cards are kicking ass but it's an nonexistent company's name that is getting all the credit. I realize just dropping the ATI name altogether will hurt sales somewhat but if they are able to win the hearts of people with a great ad program, they will gain so much more.
Get some balls AMD and hire a top notch Ad agency.
On more thing... Where the hell are the triple core systems? Last time I was at best buy all I saw were either quad cores or last gen dual cores. The whole point of the tri core was to give core duo a run but they just aren't in retail stores.
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
It certainly would help me when I'm advising people who don't know/care what raw specs mean. I can say "Well, you should look for a system with either the plain VISION or maybe Premium VISION. That should get you where you want to be."
"When you're ready to compromise, call me."
Go to your local Best Buy, stand around in the computer isle walk up to a few shoppers and just say "hey, do you have any clue what the difference is between Intel and AMD?" Listen to the uninformed and you will immediately know why AMD needed to do something drastic on the marketing side. Heck, I'm not saying this for certain but I give it a better than 50/50 shot that the Best Buy associate won't even have a clue, and that has been killing AMD for years.
You can't sell PC's based on a raw number anymore, its more nuanced, its more about the balance of the experience and what the consumer expects. Want a glorified word processor with low res web browsing capability, buy an Intel atom based netbook, want a rich multimedia experience in a highly portable package, that's AMD's Congo, Want to game on your portable computer that's AMD Tigris with the ultimate vision stamp, which to you and me means it has a 40nm 48xx mobile graphics solution, but since joe blow consumer only wants to know if it will play the new WOW expansion high res at a solid frame rate, calling it Vision Ultimate and advising that this is the enthusiast gamers choice should be adequate for them to understand what they are being promised by the vendor.
This initiative isn't for me - I like to know what's in my computers - but like Mirage said, it might be a Joe Schmo success. There's a reason mob mentality exists.
Seriously though, go to your local Best Buy, without saying anything about who you are, what you do or do not know, ask a few regular shoppers in the computer isle if they have a clue about the difference between AMD and Intel? I bet you at least one tells you that AMD isn't compatible with Windows, another tells you that AMD is a cheap knock off brand that normally fails to work after the first few months, another says that AMD is a completely foriegn company while Intel is all made in the USA, another will just shrug and say please god, I was hoping someone would tell me the same thing.
Be more specific, ask the clerk, hey man, what is better for gaming, Intel or AMD, and without considering the balance of the system spec, I would bet nine out of ten the guy just spits out Intel as common misinformation.
As a social experiment, try it sometime, its enlightening. Most folks don't know their front side bus from their discrete graphics card, all they perceive is that Intel is quality, and AMD is junk, and it's not fanboyish for me to say that AMD is NOT JUNK!!!
I do it each and every time I sell build someone a system. I'm speaking from experience, I know what the common consumer mentality is, and what an uphill battle AMD has to fight. This is why the Vision initiative is happening, will it work? I honestly don't know, to be a little fanboy now.... I hope it does, but it will only work when combined with compelling system packages which AMD does have with Dragon, Congo and Tigris.
Fanboy.
People like us: .
The rest of the world that buys computers (and makes actual money for AMD and Intel): .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. and so on.
We're like, the tiniest drop in the bucket for actual sales. Fanboyism matters naught.
I went with my dad to Microcenter to buy a computer a few weeks ago. This branding thing would have worked for him. Instead, he had to contend with specs vs. what the commissioned (and ignorant) salesguy was telling him. I sat back and watched, as a sort of academic exercise, to see how "real people" buy computers.
The complete and utter ignorance on both sides was the key factor: My dad was simply trying to communicate what he didn't even know HOW to communicate (I want to be able to put my pictures online and meet people I went to Vietnam with, and check my email) to someone who only knew how to communicate what would benefit him the most financially (We're running a special on these HP desktops, they're really fast with a ton of memory).
I finally stepped in before my dad bought a machine that he didn't need and made the decision for him.
The problem is that consumers (and we, my friends, are NOT consumers) DO NOT HAVE ANY CLUE what they are buying. From their perspective, most of these computers will do the same exact thing.
AMD has the right idea. NOT telling consumers that their X8348 is 23.5ffz with 5.22 clickawiggs and 99.2 Dekabrpz, which can be upgraded to a 3344GGRT-X dualsplit. Instead they'll be saying "Want to chat with family? This one. Want to make videos? this one. Want to play games? this one."
It's brilliant for them. It's not meant for us.
Beyond just marketing, it actually is usually more important for a consumer to know about a platform's reputation and general capabilities than any particular part inside the platform.
Thrax, I honestly don't understand your comment, "bizarre topics." What do you mean?
Like I said - it's not for me, but it'll probably work out for the Schmos.
It's an interesting approach for the computer industry and it could work. The Intel star system quickly came to mind when I first read this article.
The difference on a modern computer between a 1.6ghz dual core and a 2.8ghz quad core is completely meaningless to consumers, unless it directly affects what they want to do. If you tell my dad he needs a "4" star computer to do the webcam thing, but a "2" star computer won't, then that ACTUALLY MEANS something to him, and he'll make an informed decision.
Or because it's better.
The advanced gamers, high performance system builders, and those in the niche groups such as [EMAIL="Folding@Home"]Folding@Home[/EMAIL] and high-end graphics design will still pay attention to detailed specifications, but we aren't that important in the grand scheme of multi-billion dollar computer tech sales.
Branding topics that are irrelevant to almost every user of this forum (specific emphasis) receive a deluge of comments, while talk about a WHOLE NEW GENERATION of video cards and a brand new DirectX specification receives very little response.
This is newish. And we like to argue and speculate on the common folk.
I guess users can look to the specs for that, and a three-tier system avoids too much stratification, but it leaves a lot of wiggle room.
Intead of Premium level, if they had given optional software/hardware combination packages for the Standard level like Sound Studio, Video Editing, Gaming Level 1, Gaming Level 2, ... , it would have been more useful, IMHO
Another thing I worry about is how are they going to keep the PC resellers in line and ensure manufactures won't raise premiums to ultimate's? How will AMD stop companies from hurting a good cpu and video cards performance by mating them with slow memory and hardrives? AMD has a history of being gentle with OEM's. It really needs to start acting like what it is, the second largest cpu company in the world and start throwing its weight around. AMD just needs to grow up and stop acting like a 35 year old living at it's parents house.
Look at Hyundai in the mid 90's. It was car you hated. I remember riding a bus to the mall and sneering at them on the way. You couldn't have paid me to trade my bus transfer for one. Hyundai turned itself around by offering the best warranty in the industry, 10 year 100,000. AMD should pull off something like that. Just circumvent the PC oem's warranty and make every seller state on the box 5 year CPU and video card warranty from AMD. Industries best warranty or something like that. Most people over 30 like long warranties. It make a purchase so much more reassuring.
Lastly, they need some damn commercials. I know they can't compete with intel on every channel but at least go after some target audiences. Something like MTV, spike TV, and life or oxygen. And not just for a week but keep it going. I hate intel but every time I see an Intel inside sticker my subconscious plays that little catchy tune at the end of one of their commercials and I smile. AMD needs to win the hearts of people through marketing.
Lastly, AMD has owned ATI for 4 years now. Why am I still seeing ATI everywhere? It's like they are keeping the ATI name alive to sell it off one day. AMD's video cards are kicking ass but it's an nonexistent company's name that is getting all the credit. I realize just dropping the ATI name altogether will hurt sales somewhat but if they are able to win the hearts of people with a great ad program, they will gain so much more.
Get some balls AMD and hire a top notch Ad agency.