Brand wars: does what's 'inside' really matter? (Office Technology).

Brand wars are nothing new. They've been around since vendors have realized that a brand name is something that can be promoted. Soft drink and cigarette brand wars are probably the most noticeable and dramatic, followed by beer and trendy clothes.

The computer industry hasn't escaped this phenomenon. In many cases, however, it takes place in a somewhat subtler form, or in a non- consumer venue. Your first hint that such a "war" is taking place may come when you go shopping for a new personal computer (PC) for your office. It's when you realize that not only do you have to select a PC vendor, but that you also may have to select the vendor of the CPU (central processing unit), the main computer chip that runs the PC.

With names like Celeron, Pentium, Duron, and Athlon, you might not realize that the heart of your PC may be produced by one of two highly competitive companies. That doesn't even take into consideration the PowerPC processor that goes into Apple's computers, a whole other story, and perhaps a different column.

Intel Inside?

Given that Intel is the only CPU vendor that does consumer advertising on a large scale, it's easy to assume it's the only one that's actually making CPUs. Actually, Intel wasn't the prime producer of microcomputer CPUs right out of the gate. The first personal computers, from Commodore and Apple, used the 6502 processor from Motorola.Apple's iMacs still use a CPU that was co-developed by IBM and Motorola, the PowerPC.

Most other computers of the late 1970s and very early 1980s used processors made by a company called Ziog. For a while, Ziog's Z80 processor was the king of the hill. IBM chose a company called Intel to provide it with CPUs for its fledgling IBM PC project.

IBM chose an open architecture, something which encouraged a lot of support from third-party hardware vendors from the start. When companies such as Columbia Data Systems, Eagle Computer, and eventually Compaq Computer were able to reverse engineer the hardware part of the IBM operating system, called the BIOS (basic input output system), the PC "clone" industry was born. Each vendor that brought out an "IBM Compatible" PC also went to Intel for its processors, the 8088 and 8086 for the first generation of PC compatibles, then as IBM and Compaq introduced new generations of systems, the 80286, 80386, and 80486.

The tremendous growth that happened during the 1980s and 1990s in the PC market also fueled Intel, which supplied the processors that went into the majority of the PCs sold during this time. When Microsoft introduced Windows, the operating system was tied to certain instructions in the Intel CPU design, requiring compatibility with what was starting to be called the x86 processor standard.

Some interesting things were taking place in the processor industry as well. One of these was Intel turning to outside chip manufacturers to help it meet the tremendous demand for CPUs it was experiencing. This is not uncommon in the electronics industry, and is called second-sourcing. One of the primary second-sources for Intel CPUs was a moderate-sized company in Texas, Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD.AMD had cross-licensed some of its manufacturing patents with Intel, and when computer designs, such as those using the 80286 and 80386 processors, required separate "math chips" or "floating point processors AMD was a prime provider of these add-on chips.

At this time, however, AMD was an ally of Intel's not a direct competitor. The initial challenge to Intel's hold over the CPU industry came from a company called Cyrix.

Cyrix's fortune has waxed and waned. The vendor is now owned by Via Technologies, a Taiwan-based electronics vendor. At one time, however, Cyrix processors were in a substantial number of PCs. Exactly why Cyrix was important, however, is that it introduced something it called a "Performance Rating." Intel has always labeled its CPUs on the basis of how fast they ran internally, called clock speed. Cyrix's processors didn't run as fast, but it wanted to indicate that they performed as well as Intel's. So while a 100-MHz Intel Pentium ran at 100-MHz, a Cyrix PR100 might actually run at 85-MHz. Even at this slower speed, Cyrix felt it gave the same performance as the faster Intel processor. Cyrix had its heyday in the early and mid-1990s.

That was then, This is now

All of those cute ads on television with performers from Blue Man Group and cute aliens that you've been seeing during the past several years are aimed at a different target. Part of the reason for those ads is simply to build brand awareness. The tagline "Intel Inside" has been around for the better part of a decade, certainly since Intel had to differentiate the CPUs it was providing PC vendors from those Cyrix was providing, especially since the Cyrix processors were not only cheaper, but often a lot cheaper.

During the better part of the past decade, the vendor that's been giving Intel the most competition is its old second-source ally, AMD. Once AMD decided to compete, it's been a fierce competitor against a much larger Intel. Until recently, AMD has very much been playing catch-up with a line of CPUs that offered a somewhat lower level of performance, but a much lower price. That gave AMD a very strong position in the past four or five years in the entry-level and value-priced segment of the PC market.

It ain't necessarily so

During the past few years, however, AMD is holding its own in the design war, as well as the marketing war. When Intel introduced the Pentium III, AMD countered with the Athlon. Intel's Celeron was met with an AMD Duron. And the latest Pentium 4 processors have their matches in AMD's Athlon XP.

What's confusing many PC buyers when perusing a catalog or specification sheet is the way each vendor indicates the relative performance of its CPU. Intel has always used the clock speed that its CPUs operate at to indicate how well the processor can be expected to perform. The newest Pentium 4, runs at a blistering 2.4GHz.

AMD's Athlon XP processor, however, while very compatible with the Pentium 4, has a slightly different internal design, and does not run quite as fast as the Intel processors. The speediest and most powerful AMD Athlon XP, also just announced, is the Athlon XP2100+. From its nomenclature, you might assume that the AMD processor was running at a clock speed of 2.1-GHz. It actually runs at 1.73-GHz -- shades of Cyrix's PR rating.

The result of this labeling approach is that there are a lot of shots being fired back and forth right now. It isn't happening in the consumer press, so you may not be hearing about the war until you step into a computer store, or go online to place an order for a new PC.

With AMD gaining new footholds with a number of major vendors including Compaq, the CPU war is likely to escalate.

In some respects, the entire "clock speed" war is a paper tiger. For most nonprofits, the performance differential between an Intel CPU and one from AMD will not be distinguishable without special testing programs and a stopwatch. Intel's Pentium 4 does provide a discernable advantage in some applications, but these applications are graphic-oriented, and not likely to be of interest to most nonprofits.

To AMD's credit, it has become very popular in the gaming market, where purchasers often push the clock speed up far beyond the stated limits. Again, an area that is not really germane to a nonprofit.

What's important is that you shouldn't be scared off of a PC because it may contain an AMD processor. If the computer meets your needs as far as capabilities, hard disk size, and other features, not seeing an "Intel Inside" sticker on the box should not send you running.

That's not to say that having an Intel CPU isn't a worthwhile thing. Intel makes excellent processors. So does AMD. Just make sure that the PC that you buy will do what you need it to, and let the brand war's bullets whiz over your head.

Ted Needleman is the former associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Accounting Technology magazine. He is now a technology consultant and writer based in Stony Point, NY His email address is [e-mail]