AUG. 29, 2010 • AMD is preparing to retire the ATI Technologies name regardless of 25 years of brand equity. The move is being driven by upcoming products that will combine the CPU and GPU on the same chip. AMD believes that it has “permission” to make the change following internal surveys that suggest consumers like the AMD brand and won’t mind it being associated with ATI product lines.
Impact: Perhaps AMD has a point. Enthusiast gamers who build their own PC rigs will suffer no confusion in the rebranding. Neither does the strong competition between the two primary GPU chipset technology companies foster the strong ATI vs. NVIDIA fanboy loyalties we used to see. Furthermore, while the NVIDIA name has a strong presence, ATI was more known for brands like Radeon. So the thinking is that AMD Radeon will be a stronger name to compete against NVIDIA and Intel. It should be noted that this comes at a time that AMD has been increasing its market share in graphics.
