Have you seen it yet? The new television ad where Apple and Intel reveal to the world that a dual core CPU made by Intel is now driving the iMac 2006 computer?
(Advertisements beginning in February 2006).
The fact that the iMac has Intel inside didn't surprise me because the computer industry has been abuzz for the last year about the unique partnership. What did shock me was the verbal message contained in the ad. The words in the message immediately struck me with the impression that Intel management has lost its collective mind.
Graphics used in the ad were of the quality expected of Apple – monochromatic and slick. What wasn't expected was the voice-over:
"Intel chips for years have been trapped inside dull little boxes... dutifully performing dull little tasks... until now...."
Dull little boxes? I can imagine what was going through the minds (and out the mouths) of PC manufacturers when they saw the ad. The corporate management of one of those 'dull little box' makers, Dell Computer, must have had a very interesting day discussing the arrogance of Intel. Also discussed at Dell very likely was the subject of ungratefulness on the part of Intel.
Refresh our collective memories if you will, but wasn't it about five years ago when Intel was experiencing quality control problems with their marvelous Pentium chips... something about an erroneous floating point issue? And, did not Intel at the time also have difficulty in bringing out newer versions of the Pentium because of manufacturing problems? And, wasn't there a user privacy issue? Did that not happen? Yet, which computer manufacturer (then the world's largest) came forth to publicly declare that they would NOT substitute Pentium CPU's with arch rival AMD Athlons? I believe that computer manufacturer was Dell.
So for its loyalty to Intel, Dell Computer - the leading manufacturer of those 'dull little boxes' is put in its place by the Mac-Intel hubris. Yessir, no good deed goes unpunished.
Tell you what if I was Dell management – I'd be on the phone to Advanced Micro Devices and seriously talking to them about placing dual core Athlon 64-bit CPUs in the next wave of Dell computers going out the door. Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Alien and Systemax chose not to remain exclusively with Pentium during the rough years for Intel. Those four companies manufactured computers with what reliable Pentiums they could get and then mixed the model lines with AMD CPUs also. Only Dell stayed the course with Pentium, Celeron and Centrino CPUs exclusively.
If we thought the Star Wars episode, "Revenge of the Sith" was something, I've got a feeling we'll really see fireworks when it's time for the revenge of Dell-AMD.
— Don McKay
