The big brother is back with a bang with the eagerly awaited quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 scheduled for widespread availability in mid-November. Though AMD stole the march in the dual-core race by a clear six months prior to Intel, winning the market confidence in this regard, it will remain the poor cousin to Intel. For, apart from a few gaming enthusiasts and high-end users, the Indian market opts for the household name – Intel – for normal tasks.
Over the years, Intel has earned its share of advantages and a distinct edge over the competitors owing to its technological excellence, world-class marketing and, most importantly, wooing its channel community.
To begin with, Intel has excellent marketing strategies in place to take care of the customer segment. Secondly, it has a manufacturing upper hand over the others that enable it to initiate production at cheaper prices. And for the channel, Intel had initiated the GID concept in the Asia-Pacific Region. The Genuine Intel Dealer provided both authenticity and impetus to its partners. Intel takes its channel seriously and customizes its program trainings et al to suit the partners’ needs.
In addition, Intel has a clear roadmap – from conceiving the product idea to the final product, technological advantage and marketing strategies – and the benefits are transferred to the channels too. Mobile computing is catching up, and Intel is the clear winner on that end too.
There was a lot happening at Intel – a couple of months back, it brought down the prices of the processors with the aim of reviving the assembler market, there was a layoff internationally and even short supply. But whatever the development or circumstances, it is ‘vendor-made’. Like in the case of short supply, the chipmaker wanted the upgraded versions of processors to catch up, while in terms of revised prices, Intel wanted to bring its partners on par with the OEMs.
Also, there is a lot to cheer for Intel’s socially-driven initiatives like “World Ahead Program”, “Jagruti Program”, “Double Promotion for an overall development. This, in fact, is the sign of true success.