|
Low-Cal Snack, Anyone? (3/5/98)
|
 
|
| | |
Who, in this modern world, hasn't heard of the Pentium? Darn near no one, right? Thanks to the miracle of television and the near-boundless advertising budget of Intel, even people who have never seen a computer, much less used one, know that the Pentium is the thing that makes those shiny bunnymen so funky. (Also by the miracle of television and the near-hopelessly-constrained advertising budget of Apple, some people also realize that Pentium II's are harvested from the backs of cute snails before the shiny bunnymen put them into those new-fangled computer things.)
Well, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Intel is hoping to repeat the success of the Pentium's brand awareness with a new low-cost chip dubbed the "Celeron." That chip was named by Lexicon Naming, a company that apparently does nothing but come up with brand names for new products, which is one heckuva sweet job. Anyway, they say that the name "Celeron" is based on the word "celerity," meaning "speed." (So what was the name "Pentium" based on?) Until now, the word "celerity" was last used by a guy named Herb Schlossberg back in 1962, whereas a good 99+% of the people on the street know what "celery" is. So when all the "Celeron" ads start flooding the airwaves, which are people going to think of first: speed, or a crunchy, low-cal high-fiber snack?
Could it be that Apple's "Bad Name Disease" is spreading? Or perhaps its a different strain-- Apple's version leads to dull names like "Power Macintosh G3 Home" and "Mac OS Enterprise," while the strain caught by Lexicon Naming leads to inappropriate associations. For instance, while some AtAT staff feel that the name "Celeron" sounds like a color from the Tweeds catalog (perhaps just a shade lighter than "Dusty Sage"), now that I'm past the "celery" association, I'm inexorably reminded of the nasty aliens from Battlestar Galactica. Appropriate, no?
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (508)
|  |
 |
|
And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
| | | |
|
| |
|
 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/5/98 episode: March 5, 1998: It's Intel Day on AtAT! Did Apple plan Newton's demise with Intel last summer, in an intricate plot to revitalize its handheld line? Meanwhile, Intel readies a crunchy new chip infected with a less-than-compelling name, in an attempt to reverse their downward earning spiral caused by the growth of the sub-$1000 PC market...
Other scenes from that episode: 507: Murder Conspiracy (3/5/98) While we haven't written our own Newton conspiracy theory into the show yet, we're happy to report that Don Crabb's doing an admirable job in our stead. Don's boss Stuart helps craft a diabolical web of intrigue which casts Apple and Intel as co-conspirators in the plan to axe the Newton... 509: Cheaper Chips (3/5/98) And speaking of Intel, Wall Street is still feeling the aftershocks of their recent earnings warning, which knocked over ten points off Intel's stock price of 86 or so. In turn, most other technical stocks took a sudden downturn, as the NASDAQ likes to follow Intel...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
