Intel not killing off the Celeron brand, but it should

After a flurry of rumors last week, Intel confirms that it is not killing off the Celeron any time soon. But it should.

Celeron is Intel's low-cost processor offering, but with the chip giant getting ready to release dual-core Atom N during the third quarter, with these having a similar price and performance to the Celeron, the company risks having two product lines in competition. 

However, Intel has been quick to dismiss rumors of Celeron's 2011 demise:

"The rumor is not true, Intel has no plan to phase out the Celeron brand in 2011. Intel Celeron processors continue to provide a low-cost computing solution for basic computing needs," wrote Barry Sum, an Intel spokesman in Hong Kong, in an e-mail response to questions.

The Celeron brand has been around for some time now, with the first 266MHz "Covington" desktop processors released in April 1998 (basically a Pentium II part without the secondary cache), with 300MHz "Mendocino" notebook parts followed in January 1999.

Getting rid of the Celeron branding makes a lot of sense to me. The Celeron lineup currently consists of three dual-core desktop CPUs and nine mobile CPUs. Adding Atom to that mix just seems like a recipe for confusion. I'm guessing that Intel is holding onto the line because the name is associated with budget lines, and both it and OEMs can make use of that.