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'Inside' out as Intel gears up to 'Leap Ahead'

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CIOL Bureau
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Scott Hillis

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SAN FRANCISCO: The world's biggest chipmaker said on Thursday it will scrap its 37-year-old logo and well-known tagline as part of a major rebranding that will emphasize its shift away from its core PC business and into consumer products.

The original Intel Corp. logo featuring a lowered "e" will be replaced with one showing an oval swirl surrounding the company's name.

The phrase "Leap ahead" will supplant "Intel Inside," which launched the Silicon Valley giant into public awareness in the 1990's and helped it build the world's No. 5 brand, worth an estimated $36 billion, according to consultancy Interbrand.

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The company said that although the "Intel Inside" tagline will disappear, it will retain a marketing program with that name in which Intel helps PC makers advertise products that use its chips.

Chief Executive Paul Otellini is set to unveil details of the campaign during next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which features a plethora of upcoming gadgets from digital music players to wearable lamps.

Intel is counting on the consumer appetite for digital media and networking to drive business as the PC market slows and as rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. makes inroads into the markets for laptop and server computers.

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The brand overhaul also puts a new face on an internal shift accelerated since Otellini took the helm of the company in May.

"This is essentially the extension of the Otellini legacy, moving the platform strategy up through full marketing of the firm," said Eric Ross, an analyst with ThinkEquity Partners, who has "buy" ratings on both Intel and AMD.

The changes take the focus off individual chips and put it on "platforms" that the company hopes will spur the integration of Intel-based computers with digital media and networks in homes, businesses and schools.

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The new campaign also plays down Intel's venerable Pentium brand while emphasizing its Centrino line of laptop chips and a new effort called "Viiv", which aims to integrate PCs into home entertainment such as by recording TV shows and sending them to other devices.

"The reason they are doing this is they need to move away from the PC to being a solution provider. The real growth for the next five years is cell phones, and for the next 10 years is probably consumer electronics, and Intel has done a really poor job of penetrating those areas," Ross said.

Intel also for the first time revealed that its new chip for laptop computers, so far known as Yonah, will be marketed as Core.

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That processor, a key part of Viiv, will debut early next year and will be a major product launch as Intel seeks to regain ground in the mobile market against AMD.

The brand overhaul comes just weeks after the Santa Clara, California-based company elevated Eric Kim to the role of Chief Marketing Officer.

Intel hired Kim away last year from Samsung Electronics, where he was credited with helping to forge a brand to take on industry stalwarts such as Japan's Sony Corp.

(Additional reporting by Philipp Gollner)

© Reuters

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