Friday, December 30, 2005

Intel to announce new strategy and to re-brand

Intel is about to unveil a revolutionery new strategy and all new branding. I guess the engineers are finally no longer running the company. After all, new CEO, Otellini is a marketing and business guy. He's no techie. And he recently hired Kim, Samsung's head marketer, as CMO and has him report directly.

So, Kim and Ottelini have decided that Intel needs to become more than just the leader of microchips in computers. Now they need to drive into more and more sectors with more powerful brands. They need to power entertainment centers and personal video recorders with Viv. They need to own the wireless space with Centrino and they need to regain the momentum in servers and PC's with Core.

They will get aggressive about new sectors such as mobile and medical and more while also going beyond just the chip. Now they're going to go further up the stack to provide platforms of chips and software. Enabling the boxes they sell to become easier to build and to run better. Intel may even take us all closer to the concept of 'plug and play'. I certainly hope so.

And to support all of this Intel is about to unveil a snappy new swirling logo and a new strap line - "leap ahead". And they'll power this new look and strategy with a multi-billion dollar ad campaign intended to help us all understand better what Intel can do for our lives.

Wow! It looks like 2006 will see a remake for the other half of Wintel after all. And I can't help feeling like Intel and Microsoft may even be getting it right. So, well done Apple for choosing Intel and look out TI, Samsung and Qualcomm. It'll be a long slog for Intel but this isn't a bad start.

If it works they may even see double digit growth again, but it'll take a couple of years to get there.

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