Marchitecture
Encyclopedia
Marchitecture is a portmanteau of the words marketing
and architecture
. The term is applied to any form of electronic architecture perceived to have been produced purely for marketing reasons. It may be used by a vendor to place itself in such a way as to promote all their strongest abilities whilst simultaneously masking their weaknesses.
For example, some may argue that nVidia
's resurrection of its 3Dfx
's original SLI
implementation is "marchitecture" as it was brought back solely to combat ATi's
X8XX series of cards and as a promoted "upgrade path" for their motherboards, contributing little directly to their bottom line .
Another example may be Intel's Pentium 4
. It has been argued that the processor series' reliance on high clock speeds is a deliberate attempt to make it appear faster to the uninformed consumer than the slower-clocked AMD Athlon series of processors, its main competitor. AMD
later responded to this with a marketing campaign to dispel the 'megahertz myth
' and adopted a scheme to denote the relative performance of its processors that avoided reference to its clock speed.
For more detailed information about the term 'marchitecture' see this article (updated 30 June 2003).
Another sense in which the term Marketecture is used is in the context of an abstract description of a complex system, such as a distributed software system, for the purpose of discussion and analysis. As Ian Gorton points out in his book, Essential Software Architecture, page 6,
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
and architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. The term is applied to any form of electronic architecture perceived to have been produced purely for marketing reasons. It may be used by a vendor to place itself in such a way as to promote all their strongest abilities whilst simultaneously masking their weaknesses.
For example, some may argue that nVidia
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
's resurrection of its 3Dfx
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
's original SLI
Scalable Link Interface
Scalable Link Interface is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output...
implementation is "marchitecture" as it was brought back solely to combat ATi's
Ati
As a word, Ati may refer to:* Ati, a town in Chad* Ati, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines* Ati-Atihan Festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines* Ati, a queen of the fabled Land of Punt in Africa...
X8XX series of cards and as a promoted "upgrade path" for their motherboards, contributing little directly to their bottom line .
Another example may be Intel's Pentium 4
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
. It has been argued that the processor series' reliance on high clock speeds is a deliberate attempt to make it appear faster to the uninformed consumer than the slower-clocked AMD Athlon series of processors, its main competitor. AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
later responded to this with a marketing campaign to dispel the 'megahertz myth
Megahertz Myth
The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the misconception of only using clock rate to compare the performance of different microprocessors...
' and adopted a scheme to denote the relative performance of its processors that avoided reference to its clock speed.
For more detailed information about the term 'marchitecture' see this article (updated 30 June 2003).
Another sense in which the term Marketecture is used is in the context of an abstract description of a complex system, such as a distributed software system, for the purpose of discussion and analysis. As Ian Gorton points out in his book, Essential Software Architecture, page 6,
[A marketecture] is one page, typically informal depiction of the system's structure and interactions. It shows the major components, their relationships and has a few well chosen labels and text boxes that portray the design philosophies embodied in the architecture. A marketecture is an excellent vehicle for facilitating discussion by stakeholders during design, build, review, and of course the sales process. It's easy to understand and explain, and serves as a starting point for deeper analysis.
External links
- Marketecture definition from Word Spy
- Software Architecture: The Difference between Marketecture and Tarchitecture (sample chapter) from Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions (ISBN 9780201775945) by Luke Hohmann
- Essential Software Architecture (ISBN 3540287132) by Ian Gorton
- Dilbert cartoon from March 2, 2009 has "marketecture" as central topic