AMD to shed ATI brand?

We're taking this one with a grain of salt -- we haven't seen it hit the wires just yet -- but the word on the street is that AMD has decided to drop the ATI brand name from future products. Seems like it'll be all AMD all the time for the newly joined chip makers, and according to the report, AMD's Richard Baker wanted to be clear that the acquisition is a takeover, not a merger. Apparently Chris Hook from ATI followed that up in a throughly docile manner, saying that "I don't have a personal emotional attachment to it [the brand], 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." We were kind of hoping for some sort of nationally televised logo-deathmatch, or at least a lame attempt at merging the two brands, but we suppose we'll keep on keeping on. Somehow.

UPDATE: Ars Technica is calling this report false, and claims that according to their secret conversations with AMD, ATI will stick around as a brand name for consumer products such as the Radeon graphics line. We'll content ourselves to watching these two rumors duke it out across the blogosphere, and announce a winner once AMD or ATI actually weighs in on the issue.

[Thanks, Alex W.]

[Fuzz @ Aug 7th 2006 5:29PM]

I always thought they should call themselves Amdati. It almost sounds like a real word. Almost.

[Rus @ Aug 7th 2006 5:32PM]

The most ironic thing is that this has not passed regulatory approval yet ... and I have serious doubts that it will.

[Mini-Me @ Aug 7th 2006 5:33PM]

I don't like. Next rumor is that they're changing the card colours to green.

[Ken C @ Aug 7th 2006 5:38PM]

I think that Intel will be officially dropping AMD/ATI as a licensed partner no way they will want their competitors sticker next to their's on PC's and notebooks. I think things are going to be changing if your wanting an intel pc.

[Brent @ Aug 7th 2006 5:48PM]

ATI and AMD merge to become "I'm Data". Story at 11.

[r-y-a-n @ Aug 7th 2006 5:59PM]

what would amd gain by doing that?

[Droo @ Aug 7th 2006 6:04PM]

I think this would be unfortunate and definitely would be my fear. The ATI brand (like the AMD brand) has been around for many many years. To simply remove that brand from the landscape would be a disappointment.

[Alex @ Aug 7th 2006 6:06PM]

Well they could compromise?

AMD+ATI=ATD, or
AMD+ATI=AMI

[MadHattr @ Aug 7th 2006 6:15PM]

Hmmm, so that AMD mug I drink coffee from will be a collectible item in a few, errr, decades? Mwahaha.

[anon @ Aug 7th 2006 6:18PM]

Alex is obviously an idiot. By "compromising", they would be elliminating all brand, established names. You don't know a thing about business.

And why the hell would they "compromise"? AMD owns them, and they'll do what they need to do to promote their name brand.

[anon @ Aug 7th 2006 6:21PM]

MadHattr is obviously an idiot as well. The AMD name isn't going anywhere.

[bob @ Aug 7th 2006 6:25PM]

well that would probably restrict them from intel based machines, if intel put in a contract to manufacuteres not to have the amd brand in comp

[t10 @ Aug 7th 2006 6:29PM]

This would make ATI current generation's 3Dfx ;p

[MadHattr @ Aug 7th 2006 6:31PM]

Hey, I'm not an idiot, just a tired person. And yeah, I did mean ATI.

[Grym @ Aug 7th 2006 6:34PM]

I think if AMD is going to make a lame attempt at any new name it should be "DAAMIT" as this will by the cry of every person that ever tries to put and nVidia SLI on an AMD machine.

[customholle @ Aug 7th 2006 6:53PM]

I wonder why i cant get any ATI stock info on my yahoo widget...

[idude135 @ Aug 7th 2006 7:33PM]

All of this was meant to happen. AMD always intended to absorb ATI so it can have a showdown with Intel for market share.

At the end, it will either mean they win market share, or that nVidia makes the most of it, since it's the last graphics card maker. If Intel continues to lead the market, then an nVidia graphics card configuration swill be more common than in the last decade.

Of course, it's only a matter of time until Intel buys out nVidia.

[n2 @ Aug 7th 2006 8:11PM]

That's too bad, because even though they may be indifferent to the brand, it's a name that is known and recognizable to millions outside of AMD and ATI.

[Racekarl @ Aug 7th 2006 8:29PM]

Haha

Anon refused to sign his comment, which is unfortunate since I can't call him out by name as an even bigger idiot who clearly knows nothing about business.

Many well known company names were formed as "compromise" names following a merger or acquisition:

To name a few:
20th Century Fox
Alfa Romeo
Arcelor
LG

There are many more...

[Tom @ Aug 7th 2006 8:39PM]

This reminds me of when I took the ATI sticker off my Gamecube.

[Brad Stansell @ Aug 7th 2006 8:39PM]

Does anyone else see the irony this might cause for Apple? You can buy an Intel powered Mac Pro and 'upgrade' (as Lord Steve says) to an AMD video card. At least with ATI it sounded better.

[Observer @ Aug 7th 2006 8:51PM]

Case of AMD overvaluing their brand and under-valuing ATI's?

[Matt @ Aug 7th 2006 9:28PM]

Racekarl - not to mention that Alex was obviously joking around...

It is always the ones that cry "idiot" that are the true fools.

[Wry Cooter @ Aug 7th 2006 9:57PM]

As an earlier post suggested. I think they merely want to spook those using ATI cards into buying AMD inside, or forcing intel machines to carry an Advertisement for AMD.

Apparently hey haven't really counted on this muscle move forcing OEM customers to use nvidia instead of the ATI GPU they would have happily included otherwise.

[jonb @ Aug 7th 2006 10:27PM]

I think this is a very poor move. Mobile computing is where market growth is occuring and is also where the ATI name has brand recognition. AMD is still equated to 'generic' for most people outside of gaming.

[evo @ Aug 7th 2006 10:30PM]

Racekarl--

You forgot to mention "Moland Springs". Remember how that turned out? ;)

[Tony Rayo @ Aug 7th 2006 10:35PM]

*looks at the Intel Inside & Graphics by ATI stickers on his laptop... so long little buddies*

There does seem to be a trend of AMD chips/ATI cards and Intel chips/Nvidia cards going together as the norm, but there are many cases when this isn't the case. I think AMD would be hurting both their AMD and certainly would be hurting ATI, so I hope ATI shareholders or some oversight group out there can squash this from happening (I don't care if they merge, but I see it as just giving Intel/Nvidia a boost and they are already doing well).

- Tony R.

[Standiford @ Aug 7th 2006 10:47PM]

Racekarl,

Lucky/Goldstar did not acquire its new name by result of acquisition. After decades of using the Lucky brand name domestically and the somewhat more dignified Goldstar name off continent, they shelled out big money to establish one identity to use worldwide. The specific logic behind using the inital of each brand as a corporate name has never been explained to this journaler.

And you forget Mercedes-Benz.

ATI or AMD Graphics Divison or whoever they become, better get on some X-windows "drivers" or they'll lose that 6% of the market. When N-vidia is bought by Intel, that's when I get sick.

AMD, ATI, etc., please make available to me an AM2 board with pretty hot on-board graphics and everything will be all right.

[Revrant @ Aug 7th 2006 11:36PM]

Esh, I don't know how I feel about this, as a consumer it doesn't affect me, of course, though I will miss the ATI name, it seems as though there will be considerable backlash from this decision, especially from the Intel front.

[j-dawg @ Aug 7th 2006 11:39PM]

All the commenters commenting on what abad move this is fail to remember that this is a corporation; there are many trained minds who have probably thought of the objection you came up with and got around it.

It may be a risky move, but they're not dumb.

[Penchum @ Aug 8th 2006 10:29AM]

If they miss one production cycle (like 3DFX did) things could get interesting. I would think that NVIDIA is about to shoot with both barrels. :)

[KidIcarus74 @ Aug 8th 2006 1:02PM]

Intel won't be buying nVidia anytime soon. A lot of people forget that Intel is has the highest marketshare in the graphics business (integrated graphics outnumber dedicated boards almost 7-to-1) and buying nVidia doesn't make sense for either company. The people reading and replying to this blog represent mostly power users and gamers which are less than 5% (and that's being generous) of the graphics market. the other 95% of users out there are business users (who don't have a choice in what they use since it's purchased for them) and general use PCs (like the hundreds of thousands sold every day through Wal-Mart and Dell) who could care less about desktop or mobile 3d performance. AMD buying ATi makes perfect sense since AMD didn't previously have a graphics division, which made making platform chipsets difficult (except for their server boards). And I must agree with the previous poster that said that both AMD and ATi probably employ people smarter and more business-savvy than most people commenting on this post and they're the ones making the (right) decisions.

[Ray @ Aug 8th 2006 8:40PM]

Nothing like a American company buying out a respected Canadian company and ridding a well-recognized brand name, eh? Watch out Corel... BTW my cousin by marriage works as a mid-level exec in ATI.