Settle a dispute: AMD vs. Intel

Hello, somewhat of a strange request for you folks. Arron Rouse, the author
of this editorial:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18733

The next major hurdle AMD has put in its own path is its marketing
department. While many of the individual people working in it are amongst
the nicest in the industry, the department as a whole is lacklustre at best.
Perhaps the easiest way of demonstrating this is the AMD web site . Compare
it with Intel's site or, if you want to see something beautiful, Apple's
site . Ask yourself if the AMD site looks like that of a multi-billion
dollar company. It is one of the main tasks of marketing to make sure that
the company image is glowing. The AMD site says much about the firm's
marketing department.

I wrote a response back to him saying that I don't really see what he's
talking about when it comes to comparing the Intel and AMD websites, they
both seem to be equal; but neither of them compares to the Apple website,
which is gorgeous of course (what else would something designed by Apple
be?). So taking the Apple website (http://www.apple.com/) out of the
equation, how would you rate AMD's website (http://www.amd.com/) vs. Intel's
(http://www.intel.com/).

My opinion is that AMD's side navigation column is a little bit more
cluttered, while Intel is a little bit more dependent on graphical links
which might make it a bit slower to load on dial-up. But really beyond that
and color schemes, I don't see a whole lot that's all that different between
the two sites. So I guess we'll let the hardnosed critics on this newsgroup
decide. :-)

http://www.amd.com/
http://www.intel.com/

Yousuf Khan

"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67 (AT) ezrs (DOT) com> wrote in
news:u9edncObs7hk2sfcRVn-qQ (AT) rogers (DOT) com:

how would you rate AMD's
website (http://www.amd.com/) vs. Intel's (http://www.intel.com/).

Both are bad:
AMD = 179 validation errors (HTML 4.0 Transitional)
Intel = 107 validation errors (HTML 4.01 Transitional)
Both use tables for layout.
Neither one has a proper document outline(e.g. headings).

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:36:08 GMT, Dave Patton <spam (AT) trap (DOT) invalid> wrote:

"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67 (AT) ezrs (DOT) com> wrote in
news:u9edncObs7hk2sfcRVn-qQ (AT) rogers (DOT) com:

how would you rate AMD's
website (http://www.amd.com/) vs. Intel's (http://www.intel.com/).

Both are bad:
AMD = 179 validation errors (HTML 4.0 Transitional)
Intel = 107 validation errors (HTML 4.01 Transitional)
Both use tables for layout.
Neither one has a proper document outline(e.g. headings).

Both are pretty inflexible (though AMD is slightly less bad).

Both use microfonts (Intel is worse).

Intel's colour scheme is superficially more pleasant, but the links are
an utter shambles. On one page:
- white on blue, not underlined, no hover effect
- blue on white, not underlined, hover effect
- dark grey on light grey, not underlined, excessive hover effect
- dark blue on white, underlined, no hover effect
- black on grey, underlined, no hover effect
And one or two other variants on other pages.

At least with AMD it seems pretty easy to spot where the links are.

Both use images for text, but at least both have ALT texts in these
cases. However both are missing ALT strings on decorative images.

Both have lots of inline Javascript. But both do at least seem to be
navigable without Javascript.

Not the worst sites I've met, but neither company has a lot to be proud
of.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/