Get Rid Of Computing Lingo
from the too-confusing dept
AMD's VP of "Consumer Advocacy" (how do you get such a job?) is telling tech companies that they need to treat their customers better. His biggest suggestion: get rid of the confusing gobbledygook that comes along with any tech purchase. The average consumer has no idea what "1.6 GHz, 256KB L2 cache, 64MB DDR SDRAM" means, and (if anything) is more scared off by it than compelled to purchase. I'm not sure I completely agree with the argument, but there is definitely some element of the tech industry that forgets that not all of its customers are tech savvy.
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Fix those car dealer spiels too!
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Ha! I bet you're right. I knew there was an AMD/Intel angle in this story somehow, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
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The More Info The Better
Nevertheless, as long as you have a list of specs, you can at least compare one machine to another and get a feel for which one should perform better. That's the same for automobile specs, too. There's a lot more to a car's performance than a 0-60 time, a skid pad number, and the braking distance, but at least they're a point of comparison. (Actually, I suppose those are the equivalent of computer benchmark numbers instead of raw machine specs. Substitute engine displacement, tire size and brake rotor diameter for a more direct analogy.)
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cars & clockspeed
About AMD, I have been somewhat on their side with the whole megahertz myth thing because it's just not a very useful measurement. It's exactly like buying a car based on the RPM of the engine--sure it's remotely indicative of performance but without a whole lot of context, it's a completely useless number. Look at IBM's Power3/4 processors-they have relatively low clockspeeds--really almost laughably low. But it's performance in server applications is many many times faster than Intel or AMD chips of the same processor speed. Unfortunately there trying to sell speed based on benchmarks doesn't work because the chipmakers would just tweak the chip to the benchmarks rather than making them really faster for real world uses.
steve snyder
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But the times have changed. The average consumer has changed quite a bit, as have the machines. Though Intel and AMD are loath to admit it, processors are commodities for the mainstream consumer. These attributes are irrelevant.
A new jargon might help AMD better describe their brand attributes versus those of Intel, but since there is no real difference in consumer experience among processors, a new jargon will do little more.
The specifics will always be important to afficianados, so they won't disappear entirely. But since they just don't matter to consumers, descriptions like "sporty," "fast," "cool," etc. will suffice. Oh, I forgot "pretty".
And do the red ones go faster?
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