So Long, Farewell: AMD to Kill ATI Brand Name

From: AnandTech.com Aug. 30 2010

AMD's market research shows that it's time to get rid of the ATI brand

It's been a long four years, but AMD has finally hits its stride after its acquisition of ATI Technologies way back in 2006. After agreeing to purchase ATI for $5.4B, AMD was besieged with quarterly losses stemming from the purchase, constant pressure from NVIDIA in the graphics market, and beatdowns from Intel (who wasn't exactly playing by the rules of fair business) in the processor market.


With most of its troubles now behind it, AMD is looking to kill off the long-standing ATI brand and bring Radeon and FirePro graphics solutions solely under the AMD umbrella according to AnandTech.


New AMD graphics branding


According to AMD's own research in markets from around the world, it came to the following three conclusions:

• AMD preference triples when respondent is aware of ATI-AMD merger
• AMD brand [is] stronger than ATI vs. graphics competitors
• Radeon and FirePro brand awareness and consideration [is] very high

The move will also help to further consolidate AMD's branding which has pretty much gotten out of hand in the past few years [see figure on right]. AMD will begin the transition later this year to phase out ATI branding and move to a more simplified product branding lineup. By 2011, AMD's product lineup will consist of AMD's Opteron for server processors, Vision (which consists of a CPU/GPU hybrid) for consumer processors, and Radeon/FirePro for graphics.


With AMD now taking the discrete graphics market lead from NVIDIA (51.1 percent for AMD versus 44.5 percent for NVIDIA) and preparing to take the fight straight to Intel with three new CPU designs, the next year should be a fruitful one for enthusiasts.


SOURCE: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=19479

Not meaning to hijack but this place is being built about 15 miles from my house.

http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases...2009jul24.aspx

No hijack at all! Kinda goes hand in hand with the article.

At least AMD doesn't desert a city or state after a couple of years, such DELL does.

AMD is in it for the long haul for sure.

I feel that it will serve AMD well to drop the ATI brand, it probably was their intention all along. AMD, while not popular to all, is a direct competitor with Intel in the processor market. A big thorn in Intel's side that won't go away.

AMD does attempt to make their products more affordable than Intel does, and by it's presence, does help to create a level playing field. Meaning that you have a choice, and that while Intel's prices are higher, very much so, they realize that they can only charge so much for their mainstream products. Of course, for Intel's top line products, they charge what they wish. But really, how much of the computing population spends over $1,000 for a processor alone? Probably less than 1% of their entire customer base spends that much on a single part.

With that said, I'm a fan of AMD's products myself, and hope that their recent decision is successful for them, and that they do hang around longer than Dell did in my state (NC). That will never be forgotten, and I seriously doubt that the Dell family will be forgiven for the way they treated the ones that extended so much to them, and then drove a dagger down our backs as their symbol of thanks.

Cat

I wonder what this will mean to people like myself who have a Video Card (ATI Radeon HD 5700) and future updates. Will we still update under the old brand name or will the upgrades just drop the ATI from the card name.

You will still be able to update with no problems. Future upgrades will drop the ATI and use the RADEON branding solely.

Thanks Nibiru, thats good to know since I have a near new computer with an ATI Radeon HD5770. I might've been upset if AMD brushed me off and left me by the wayside.

From what I hear AMD bought out ATI years ago and just now changing the logo. So from that stand point this issue that everyone is now wondering about happened years ago and will not be an issue now simply because they are finally changing the logo.