In my column of December 17, I wrote (among other things) “Gateway has a nasty little marketing thing going on” in which it implies that its “low-end” (my term) 2.7-GHz machines aren’t “perfect” for things like image editing and multitasking.
I took Gateway to task for that because I thought that kind of marketing a bit disingenuous. My creaky old 750-MHz machine does image editing and multitasking wonderfully, for example.
I got a note from Lisa Emard, Gateway’s director of media relations. Naturally, she was unhappy with my characterization, and wanted to make Gateway’s position clear.
Although I stand by what I wrote, but she did have some good and important points I want to share. And I want to put her most important idea up front.
Contrary to your focus solely on processor speeds, Gateway does not
highlight one spec to delineate between product lines. We build
complete systems that provide the customer with the best experience for the primary applications they want to run.
She gave some examples, such as:
A Media Reader is the fastest and easiest way to download
images from a digital camera. All of our 5200 Series PCs come with
8-in-1 Media Readers standard. Also, photo editing apps like Photoshop run better with more memory and faster processors. Benchmarks prove this as well.
(Note: The 5200 Series machines are a step up from the “low-end” boxes I was talking about. Her point is that an upgrade is worth it because it’s more than a better processor.)
I can’t disagree; there’s more to a machine that processor speed, and Gateway packs more into their higher-end boxes than into the lower-end ones.
For example, that media reader. It’s a nice touch and it certainly adds some level of convenience to the unit. And sure, Photoshop runs faster on a box with more memory. (More in a sec on that.)
In short, Gateway does add features to it’s higher-priced computers that make some tasks faster and easier.
She also wrote:
In the end, you go back to the description of your Dad who simply uses his PC to write letters, send emails and surf the web. There are a lot of consumers our there just like him, and for people with basic computing needs, we absolutely recommend our Gateway 3200 Series, which starts at just $399. And as you’ll note on our desktop PC site, we feature our 3200 Series just as prominently as our higher-end desktop PCs.
She’s right: The three categories of machine are featured equally. It’s not as if the low-end boxes were relegated to the side. My apologies if I implied that.
So perhaps I was a bit harsh to call it a “nasty little marketing thing.” (I’ve asked my USA Today editor to make a change to the wording to tone it down.)
But.
I still stand by the spirit of what I said: That Gateway’s marketing doesn’t just imply that the higher-end machines are simply faster and more convenient — it implies that the lower-end boxes aren’t very good at things like photo editing.
And that’s my issue. There’s a big difference between something being not as good as something else, and something being not suitable at all. I think Gateway is implying — gently, I admit — that its lower-end boxes aren’t really good for certain tasks at all, when in fact they’re very good at them.
Here’s an analogy:
Imagine if Honda advertised the Civic as “Great for short trips around town, or easy commutes,” but pushed the Accord as “Great for longer highway drives and interstate travel.”
The fact is, the Civic is a great car that performs well, and would be excellent for “longer highway drives and interstate travel.” But that (ficticious) ad implies otherwise — it implies that you really need an Accord for longer trips.
Would the Accord be better? More comfortable, perhaps. More cup holders, a better stereo, arguably. But both cars have more than adequate acceleration, handling, and safety features. They’re both great cars.
And that’s my issue with the Gateway ad. Would your image-editing software have better benchmarks on the 5200 series? You bet. But benchmarks aren’t that meaningful after a certain point.
It’s like the difference between a car with a top speed of 300 MPH and one with a top speed of 250. It doesn’t matter ’cause you won’t ever go that fast.
Lisa Emard also wrote:
Fact: Gateway 5200 Series PCs multitask better than our 3200 series
because they have double the memory, four times the cache, faster hard drives and faster hyperthreading P4 processors. Industry-standard benchmarks prove this.
All right, I’m drooling. I can’t help it.
No argument: The 5200 series is faster and better. And yes, I’d love to own one. (I’ve owned four Gateways and loved every one. In fact, my Dad’s machine — the 200-MHz box with Windows 95 he’s had for a couple of years — is a hand-me-down Gateway of mine and still going strong after about eight years.)
Still, I stand by my contention that computer hardware is now ahead of most software, and even the low-end machines can handle just about anything with aplomb.
The Fray
Chuck Staples says:
I find the whole arguement a bit empty. Whether it be cars, computers, etc., there is a level at which the features are what you need then progresses to features that you want. The advertising is all meant to be a bit ambiguous because our needs and wants are all different. Your 2MB picture editing wish is my 64MB need. My real-time video editing dream might be your reality. Every manufacturer has to differentiate its product lines. Gateway did in a way that’s no different than anybody else, IMHO.
rev. d says:
I dissagree with coward #1 here, but on a note entirely unrelated to the article. I just don’t agree that they don’t make computers fast enough to handle today’s OS’s – all this shows is that you are using windows (and probably XP or some other defunct version of NT, which would be the source of all your woes). The new(er) Solaris machines w/ Solaris Server-based OS running (which can either run from the machine itself or a remote server for LANs) run so unbelievably smooth and fast – we have 25 boxes running from the same instance of the OS and they all run 4 desktops simultaneously without any lag at all. I say, poo on your windows woes. If I’m doing software development on my XP-running box it will take me HOURS of waiting around between actual work for windows to fumble the data around. Doing the same exact work on the Solaris OS is quick and painless. BTW, the Solaris OS is based on an open-source, free version of windowing Unix developed at RIT, which is very closely related the new Mac OS.
I look at it this way: windows pays a small team of people millions of $$$ to produce an OS with an extremely high rate of bugs and security holes. The open source community pays nothing for the expertise of the entire programming community to repair any bugs or holes as soon as they are noticed. I wonder which is better….
Anonymous Coward says:
I agree with the base idea that numbers, being easy to grasp, sell. It is a difference of ‘qualitative vs. quantitative’. Remember when it was said that it would take a 16 megapixel camera to equal the resolution of medium format? It didn’t work that way because other qualitative factors made that barrier much easier to break. However, your analogy between cars and computers is faulty. It would correspond much more closely to having a faster computer if the Civic couldn’t go as fast as the Accord (within a given speed limit). Then a roadtrip would take longer in the Civic than as Accord. The speed limit would correspond to the computer users response expectation. Maybe you aren’t processing large files in Photoshop. I’ve processed 65MB images and it takes ‘forever’, and I’m using a much faster machine than you are. Sometimes I get so frustrated I leave the room for a snack, bathroom break, whatever. Every time I do a hardware upgrade, it seems to be frustratingly countered by a necessary OS upgrade, which, because it has more ‘features’, runs slower. In my mind, they haven’t yet made a computer fast enough to run current OS’s. Ideally, the computer should be done before you have to wait on it for the next step, whether that’s a mouse click or just to look at your options. But cars are not like computers: the Civic and the Accord both travel comfortably at their target (highway) speeds.