[Pc_Support] Tom's Hardware on AMD Turion 64 ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

For those that still don't know what Intel Centrino is, I thought Tom's
first 2 paragraphs on the AMD Turion 64 tell the story ...

  "Do you still remember March 12, 2003? That's the day when Intel
   launched its not-yet-finished mobile technology called Centrino with
   great fanfare. At the same time, they let the entire mobile hardware
   world know that they could use this technology to build successful
   and profitable devices from power-saving CPUs, chipsets and wireless
   LAN modules. But the mobile PC world suffered in the months that
   followed from a dearth of new offerings without any significant
   differences among them as Intel bombarded the airwaves and print
   media with a relentless Centrino marketing blitz. Third-party chipset
   and wireless LAN module builders found themselves edged out of the
   market overnight, with little or no demand for their products from
   system builders.

  Two years later, the primary consequence of this announcement appears
  to be a glut of some exaggeratedly designed notebooks all bearing the
  Centrino brand, none of which can be easily distinguished from another
  on technical merits. On first blush, this may not appear to pose
  problems for notebook buyers, but it does put Intel on track to expand
  its market-leading position into an outright monopoly. When that
  happens there's never a real guarantee that products will be
  continuously improved and enhanced or that buyers will get the best
  bang for their mobile technology bucks. And, as a kind of scary
  example and warning about what such market position can mean, you need
  only think of a well-known software maker based in Redmond, WA. Today,
  many people are unhappy with Intel's products and pricing, and seek an
  alternative to what the Centrino leaves unfulfilled."

AMD Turion 64 is about partnerships with 3rd parties, instead of a
single, cookie-cutter, marketing-only name for existing technology from
a single vendor.  Tom's article:  
  http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20050830/index.html  


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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