What do you do when you're having competitive problems with your main
product and there is no guaranteed relief in sight?

You change the subject. At least, that's what I infer Intel to be doing
with Grantsdale:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...h/news/2591485

quote

Intel making big push for chip set
Reuters News Service

SAN FRANCISCO - Intel Corp. plans to focus unprecedented attention on
one of the more obscure components of personal computers when it
launches its newest chip set next month.

Not to be obscure for long, though. :-)

snip

Chip sets -- groups of integrated circuits that work together as humble
gatekeepers for data coming into and out of the core of the PC -- have
tended to miss out on the media and marketing attention paid to the
brains of the operation, the microprocessor.

I'm enjoying this way too much. :-) :-) It's almost as if the Reuters
correspondent were on the Intel payroll.

snip

Intel designed Grantsdale to lead a new generation of "entertainment
PCs" to be shipped later this year, part of a plan to bring PCs into the
living room and displace consumer electronics equipment.

William Leszinske, the director of marketing for Intel's "digital home"
initiative, said Intel is making a special effort to train retail
salespeople to explain the benefits of the Grantsdale chip set, even if
consumers aren't introduced to the intricacies of how a chip set works.

No training needed here. Intel chipsets are already its not-so-secret
weapon. Let's see... what do we do better than AMD? Chipsets! When
did anybody see a chipset for an AMD processor they really trusted?
Chipsets it is then. :-)

Much snippage. You really have to read the original story.

The features in Grantsdale also could help persuade shoppers to seek out
Intel-based computers, said Intel spokeswoman Laura Anderson. That may
also steer shoppers away from PCs built with chips from rival Advanced
Micro Devices Inc..

And finally, a nod to what is really going on.

snip

Grantsdale, he said, will improve memory speed, communications,
multimedia, and wireless communications.

end quote

And fend off AMD products while Intel's architects regroup (that is, I
suspect, when they are not being reminded of just how much is on the
line at the moment, like their jobs).

Now then, I hope you hadn't invested too much time in trying to make
sense of all those Intel product numbers. Who wants a, er, whatever the
processor is called, when you can have the chipset of your dreams and an
"entertainment PC" to blow your neighbors away?

The _other_ company sells performance. We sell dreams. :-).


RM