Motherboards don’t look, I’m changing! ‘Intel Inside’, the iconic logo of the world’s most dominant semiconductor manufacturing company, which has imprinted itself on the consciousness of consumers across the globe, is likely to undergo a transformation early in the new year, according to industry sources.
The new identity is expected to be unveiled in the first week of January, most likely with a new advertising campaign. The change will be announced worldwide simultaneously. A section of Intel’s top brass is expected in Singapore after January 3 to oversee the changes in the Asia-Pacific region, including India.
Some sources in Intel whom ET spoke to say that a change is in the offing, and internal documents are learnt to have already started using the new logo.
“It’s very hush-hush, but a major rollout of the new logo will be under way in the first week of January,†said an industry source.
The ‘Intel Inside’ logotype was introduced way back in 1991. The new design looks similar, with some slight changes in the way the circle is designed, and the removal of the word “inside†from the logotype.
The original Intel logo in blue, with the “e†protruding downwards from the word, is as old as the company and was introduced in 1969. It took a good 22 years before “Intel Inside†came on the scene.
Thanks to the massive investment the company has made in building the brand, “Intel Inside†is today among the top five brands in the world. Intel did not respond to queries on the change.
There have been sporadic rumours on industry websites on a new logo for Intel. In November, a French semiconductor site, x86-secrets.com, carried a report on a new Intel logo.
Intel has also created several sub-brands for its chipsets with well-known brand names  Pentium, Itanium and Centrino  but always retained Intel Inside as the mother brand. There are rumours that there might be a change in the overall brand strategy for the chipset family too.
For instance, there may be changes to Intel’s future mobile processor (code name: Yonah) the branding for which will be called “Core Solo†(single core processor). Pentium M, which is a dual core processor, may be renamed as “Core Duo†(dual core processor), instead of Pentium M.
Several industry websites have been talking about Intel’s new branding strategy. The new strategy may be based on the different segments of the market that Intel addresses.
While the desktop market will continue to use Pentium or the new version Core Duo as a brand, laptops using Core and Xeon will be developed for the server market. The Celeron will remain as a bargain basement chip.
The market for semiconductors or chips made by Intel has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. The first microprocessor made by Intel, which was used in personal computers, was the chipset 8088 used in IBM’s machines. The 8088 was launched in 1979 but was used in IBM PCs only in 1981.
The microprocessor market grew really big only in the mid-80s. Intel got out of the direct random access memory (DRAM) market in 1985 to focus only on microprocessors. As the personal computer market grew, Intel’s fortunes improved and the company decided to create a brand name among PC users.
This is when Intel employee David Cutter, the original architect of the campaign, created the Intel Inside slogan. Before that, another brand, the 286 chipset, dominated the PC market between 1982 and 1985 and sold more than 15m PCs, making Intel realise the importance of the personal computer market.
In the process of becoming the largest chip company for the PC market, Intel also made sure all PCs carried its brand ‘Intel Inside’ on them. Only one company, Apple Computers, refused to use Intel chipsets. Interestingly, Apple will move to Intel’s Pentium-4 chipset from next year.
The PC world has been debating for the past six months whether Apple will use the Intel logo on its machine. Apple, as a brand, has a cult status and if it agrees to use Intel or the new logo on its machines, it will certainly have a positive rub-off effect on Intel.
There may be some more variation and new brands emerging from the Intel stable in the near future as a part of this new branding strategy.
This is particularly so for the mobile handset or PDA market, which is growing at a rapid pace and requires the kind of computing chips that Intel specialises in. None of the semiconductor companies has been able to establish a brand presence in the PDA space.
Industry observers are waiting to see whether Intel’s new brand strategy will address the mobile PDA space. The small size of these devices and the number of chipsets on it has prevented any company from establishing a clear lead in that segment so far.
The new identity is expected to be unveiled in the first week of January, most likely with a new advertising campaign. The change will be announced worldwide simultaneously. A section of Intel’s top brass is expected in Singapore after January 3 to oversee the changes in the Asia-Pacific region, including India.
Some sources in Intel whom ET spoke to say that a change is in the offing, and internal documents are learnt to have already started using the new logo.
“It’s very hush-hush, but a major rollout of the new logo will be under way in the first week of January,†said an industry source.
The ‘Intel Inside’ logotype was introduced way back in 1991. The new design looks similar, with some slight changes in the way the circle is designed, and the removal of the word “inside†from the logotype.
The original Intel logo in blue, with the “e†protruding downwards from the word, is as old as the company and was introduced in 1969. It took a good 22 years before “Intel Inside†came on the scene.
Thanks to the massive investment the company has made in building the brand, “Intel Inside†is today among the top five brands in the world. Intel did not respond to queries on the change.
There have been sporadic rumours on industry websites on a new logo for Intel. In November, a French semiconductor site, x86-secrets.com, carried a report on a new Intel logo.
Intel has also created several sub-brands for its chipsets with well-known brand names  Pentium, Itanium and Centrino  but always retained Intel Inside as the mother brand. There are rumours that there might be a change in the overall brand strategy for the chipset family too.
For instance, there may be changes to Intel’s future mobile processor (code name: Yonah) the branding for which will be called “Core Solo†(single core processor). Pentium M, which is a dual core processor, may be renamed as “Core Duo†(dual core processor), instead of Pentium M.
Several industry websites have been talking about Intel’s new branding strategy. The new strategy may be based on the different segments of the market that Intel addresses.
While the desktop market will continue to use Pentium or the new version Core Duo as a brand, laptops using Core and Xeon will be developed for the server market. The Celeron will remain as a bargain basement chip.
The market for semiconductors or chips made by Intel has changed dramatically over the past 15 years. The first microprocessor made by Intel, which was used in personal computers, was the chipset 8088 used in IBM’s machines. The 8088 was launched in 1979 but was used in IBM PCs only in 1981.
The microprocessor market grew really big only in the mid-80s. Intel got out of the direct random access memory (DRAM) market in 1985 to focus only on microprocessors. As the personal computer market grew, Intel’s fortunes improved and the company decided to create a brand name among PC users.
This is when Intel employee David Cutter, the original architect of the campaign, created the Intel Inside slogan. Before that, another brand, the 286 chipset, dominated the PC market between 1982 and 1985 and sold more than 15m PCs, making Intel realise the importance of the personal computer market.
In the process of becoming the largest chip company for the PC market, Intel also made sure all PCs carried its brand ‘Intel Inside’ on them. Only one company, Apple Computers, refused to use Intel chipsets. Interestingly, Apple will move to Intel’s Pentium-4 chipset from next year.
The PC world has been debating for the past six months whether Apple will use the Intel logo on its machine. Apple, as a brand, has a cult status and if it agrees to use Intel or the new logo on its machines, it will certainly have a positive rub-off effect on Intel.
There may be some more variation and new brands emerging from the Intel stable in the near future as a part of this new branding strategy.
This is particularly so for the mobile handset or PDA market, which is growing at a rapid pace and requires the kind of computing chips that Intel specialises in. None of the semiconductor companies has been able to establish a brand presence in the PDA space.
Industry observers are waiting to see whether Intel’s new brand strategy will address the mobile PDA space. The small size of these devices and the number of chipsets on it has prevented any company from establishing a clear lead in that segment so far.