Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 21st Dec 2005 18:12 UTC
"One can't wander through the aisles of an electronics retailer or down the hallways of an office without walking past any number of PCs with Intel Inside stickers. As a brand-building endeavor, Intel Inside has been a success by any definition. With the first Intel-powered Macintosh computers expected to be introduced at Macworld San Francisco next month, some are wondering if Apple's machines will bear the mark of the CPU beast."
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Member since:
2005-07-13
Well, only if they sucome to the advertising dollar gimmic. I think that the mere transition to Intel was enough for Intel to give Apple the same discount without including any stickers because they know that they will get TONS more publicity from the move than a mere sticker anyways.
It's not a rebate or discount, that's determined by sales volume.
The sticker is used to access marketing development funds (MDF) or marketing co-operative funds (co-op), the article referred to them as subsidies which is effectively what they are, but for marketing efforts, not purchasing prices. It goes beyond the sticker, anytime you see a print ad or commercial from a PC maker big or small that includes "Intel Inside", you can bet that Intel paid for a portion, if not all, of that ad's costs from design to distribution. It's literally worth millions and millions of dollars to the large scale manufacturers.
My own company never pays for our own print advertising. We co-brand our ads with our suppliers, and they pay for the ads in entirety using marketing funds as long we meet their respective requirements (logo useage, marketing tag lines, target products etc.) It's often a joke that marketing is the only department without a budget because they rely on everyone else's to function, but it's the way the game is played.
Apple doesn't have to include the sticker, but they'd be walking away from additional funding for marketing efforts. Though if Apple actually intends to downplay the Intel factor, maybe that's not an issue.
Don't kid yourself into thinking Intel will bend the rules because of some sort of "wow" factor with Apple. True, it's a PR coupe that shocked the industry, but that "wow" factor is pretty much contained within the industry (and forums like this). Joe Average neither knows nor cares, and that's why Intel is all about branding. And they will want Apple co-branded with Intel wherever possible. This will sort of be a test for Apple, IMHO, about how far they will be willing to avoid a "sell out" image.
Looked at another way, if Intel lets Apple off the hook then they need to be prepared to change the rules for the bigger players.
At the end of the day, it's simply business, nothing more nothing less.