1. An apparatus comprising: a processor including; a storage location; and execution resources to execute a set of one or more instructions contained within a program running on the processor, the set of instructions including a first instruction to perform a variation of a signum operation that determines an operand sign of a second input operand in parallel with multiplying a first input operand by said operand sign of said second input operand to avoid having to perform a separate signum and multiplication operation to reduce resource requirements and to achieve performance gains in a wide range of applications including video, speech and image processing, and, in response to said first instruction, to store in said storage location a result having a value of: said first operand if said second operand is a positive value; zero if the second operand is a zero value; and a negated version of said first operand if the second operand is a negative value.