AMD has gone into frantic back peddle mode as it has intervened to dismiss reports by some AMD and ATI employees claiming that the ATI brand name would be dropped. The company however, seems to be contradicting itself on exactly what its branding policy will be.
An AMD spokesperson today tried to clear things up by stating: AMD has no plans to drop the ATI brand name or ATI's product brands. The ATI name will live on at AMD as our leading consumer brand, and so will the Radeon brand and other ATI product brands. AMD's executive management knows very well the power and value of branding, and ATI's branding is some of the most valued in the global technology industry. As such, we plan to keep it. Period.
This statement should be enough to dismiss any rumor of an end to the ATI name but just as we were getting settled into life with ATI another AMD employee, Gareth Carter, claimed: The new company will be called AMD ... the future branding of individual products and platforms will be determined at a later point in time.
What is clear from these statements is that nothing is clear but we hope AMD can get its employees, from both companies, to agree to some basic strategy soon; after all, they will need to make packaging decisions soon.
Previously on Megagames
AMD has announced that it will be dropping the ATI brand although it has not yet been decided if the ATI product names will also be dropped.
AMD has launched an offensive to inform everyone that the ATI deal was not a merger but rather, a takeover and as a result the ATI brand will soon cease to exist. When asked about the product names and whether they will be changed an AMD spokesperson said, ...we haven't made any final decisions yet, but I'd personally be very surprised if we dropped any of those product names. The ATI company name is definitely going, though.
ATI's Chris Hook commented, I don't have a personal emotional attachment to it [the ATI name], one way or another. I think the important thing is that we're going to make good products. ATI may be gone, but certainly lots of discussion is going to come over the next few days about the rest of our brands and their strengths.
So there you have it, expect a brand spanking new AMD Radeon at a store near you... soon.
