For AMD, keeping it too simple may be too stupid

The "Keep It Simple, Stupid" rule works in business as well as in everyday life, primarily because it forces us to focus on the one or two basic issues we need to make the right decision. My kindergarten teacher shortened it to "KISS," perhaps in the interest of simplicity. When you're driving a car: Know where you are, know where you're going. Leader of the free world: Keep your hands clean, know what you're aiming at. Reprogramming your iPod/in-vehicle audio system interface: Pull over, let the semi pass you.

More data, please

The computer market never got the memo -- or if it did, maybe no one could make sense of it. This is a good thing, though, because when you're investing in a technology, more data is always preferable to less. Whatever parameters you're measuring -- processor architectures and speeds, types of memory, hard drive spin velocities and capacities, or display resolutions and refresh rates -- the more you know about what's going on under the hood, the more likely you are to make a sensible buying decision that you can live and work with.

Now all of a sudden, AMD wants to dumb this process down because some people find it too confusing. And that scares me more than a little. The company's just-announced Vision program aims to replace the information-stuffed process of buying a computer with one based on three categories: Vision, Vision Premium, and Vision Ultimate, each of which corresponds to a particular end user need. Plain old Vision machines define the low end, and will do the trick for Web browsers and basic game players. Vision Premium might be suitable for gamers interested in something more challenging than Solitaire or Sudoku, as well as HD video. Vision Ultimate addresses the most demanding gamers and content creators. Early next year, Vision Black-based machines that target high-end users will join the party.

There's an eerie resemblance here to "Vista Premium" and "Vista Ultimate," but I suppose AMD didn't get that memo, either.

A slightly blurred vision

After a generation of PC marketing being driven by and targeted at technically inclined folks who used the often arcane parameters of hardware capability to measure bottom line performance and calculate value propositions, my mother-in-law is now calling the shots. If AMD's strategy plays out, consumers who don't understand the difference between level 2 and level 3 cache will now find it easier to choose the right solution.

I get that. I've seen my mother-in-law's eyes glaze over when I try to explain the benefits of 7,200 RPM drives versus 5,400 RPM ones. She doesn't much care that a quad-core processor lets her edit photos and video more smoothly than a dual-core one, and she wishes I'd stop trying to get her to upgrade her webcam from her current, lame VGA device that washes out in the low light of her home office to an HD-capable one that doesn't make her and my father-in-law look like stop action ghosts. While I quote numbers to illustrate the benefits, she waits for Wal-Mart to drop the price on a cheap machine she'd like to install in the kitchen.

What about the rest of us?

So she'll appreciate AMD's gesture. It's the rest of the world I'm worried about. Taken to its ultimate extreme, simplified computers will make it virtually impossible to make real, side-by-side comparisons. Want to know if $699 is too much? Tough. No longer will savvy customers be able to laugh off the know-it-all salesperson's claim that no one else can match their price. How can you appreciate a product's capabilities when its basic guts are deliberately hidden from view? Simplified marketing may make life easier for the uninitiated, but does the message have to be so diluted that folks with more than a little knowledge can't dig a little bit deeper on their own?

When otherwise educated customers are forced to buy based on vague notions of role- or task-matched performance, the entire process begins to look suspiciously like the one from the most recent silent auction at my children's school. In amongst the various items up for bids -- the gift certificates, logoed clothing, and small electronics -- was an envelope with a single word printed neatly across the seal: "Surprise." Based on similar experiences from past years, there was an even chance that the envelope contained a booby prize, such as a yellowed old bumper sticker or a collection of discarded scripts from last year's school play. Well-meaning parents, hoping this was a non-booby-prize year, nevertheless bid the mystery envelope up to $50 before the night ended, and ended up with a $25 gift certificate at a local coffee shop for their donation.

I'd hardly expect someone laying down hundreds or thousands of dollars at a profit-seeking technology store would be as understanding as these involved parents were. If the recession has taught us anything, it's the value of a dollar. Computers are not sold in sealed envelopes, and customers aren't supposed to guess, even vaguely, at what might be inside.

A better kind of simple

Intel already gets the message. While it arguably kicked off the simplification parade with the Centrino brand, and has been gradually moving away from feeds and speeds ever since, shoppers who understand GHz and Gbps can still pull out info sheets at the store and geek out to their heart's content. To its credit, Intel recognizes that today's PC buyers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and levels of knowledge. And a one-size-fits-all, universally-simplified marketing strategy fails to give the tech-savvy buyer sufficient background to make the right decision.

I appreciate why AMD is going simple. Data released last week by iSuppli shows its market share down by 1.4% to 11.5%, while Intel's is up by 1.5% to 80.6% -- its highest since 2005. Companies in decline need to do radical things to change their fortunes. But ticking off the large percentage of the market that still has a clue isn't a great way to start. Even my kindergarten teacher would agree.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.