The revamped branding strategy, Intel Philippines country manager Ricky Banaag said, will help consumers choose the right processor for their needs.

Saying it wants to avoid confusion among consumers, chip maker Intel has formally announced in the Philippines that it will stop using Centrino as a brand for its microprocessor starting next year.

Instead, the semincon firm will now adopt “Core” as its new flagship brand with modifiers to help distinguish the various products under it. Thus, in addition to the previously announced Core i7, there will now be Core i3 and Core i5.

The Core i5, in fact, will be officially launched in the country on September 10. The new chip is categorized as a mid-level product under the Core line.

The Core 2 Duo name will also be phased out to make way for Core as the company’s unified premium brand.

Intel stressed that the modifiers to the Core brand will indicate the relative levels of performance and feature within the processor family. In this case, i7 is the top dog for the Core line.

“The use of these modifiers will be maintained across subsequent product generations to provide a consistent and recognizable hierarchy to customers over time,” Intel Philippines country manager Ricky Banaag said.

Intel, however, is still retaining its older brands Pentium, Celeron, and Atom. Together with Core, they make up the company’s consumer brand lineup.

According to Banaag, the revamped branding strategy will help consumers choose the right processor for their needs.

“We’ve gotten feedbacks that consumers would sometimes insist that they want a Centrino chip in their laptops instead of Core 2 Duo. But the fact is Core 2 Duo is part of the Centrino platform,” said Banaag.

Centrino, which is actually a mobile platform comprised of a processor, chipset, and wireless adapter, will now be used to refer to Intel’s WiFi and WiMax wireless products.

The company also announced that its processor line aimed at the business market, the vPro, will be henceforth known as Intel Core vPro. Both the Core i7 vPro and Core i5 vPro processors will be launched in the country in 2010, Intel said. (Melvin G. Calimag)