Face-Off: Does HP's PC Business Affect Us Enthusiasts?

[x Heavy]

By the way I upgraded to Intel 1155 sandy's because the old Extreme 1000 dollar cpu's are just too expensive, even for my silver spoon mouth.

 

[hyteck9]

This has been a very good read. My company is currently evaluting its new product line up on some of these very same points. I believe HP is correct in many respects. The Service/support side that goes along with selling home PC's to non-power users is likely where the margins shrink to nothing. The staff and infrastructure required to handle every phone call caused by user error (missing icons, lost files, forgetten passwords, explaining the recycle bin) is bad enough, and gets out of control by the time you roll in malware, viruses, etc. So HP has that part right. The "average home PC market" is too tough. So on to enthusiasts. I consider this too broad a term as it tries to cover too many camps at once. We are really talking about Power Users, Overclockers and Gamers. PowerUsers still expect "workstation" quality, multi-thread power and reliability. They are your hard core 3D modelers, animators, Adobe Premiere editors, etc. Gamers want FPS, a hint of portability, positional HD audio, and quiet enough operation that they can enjoy said audio. Overclockers need great cooling, options, options, options, excellent cooling again, and more options. Flexable firmware, tweakable software and as modifiable a footprint as a case can offer. None of these groups want quite the same thing... and none of them can get it on an iPad or tablet despite what the commercials make you think. But in general, these 3 groups don't compain much either. They won't light up your call center with level 1 support calls all day. They shell out big $$$ when they feel it is justified and keep to themselves. These are the groups HP should target if they want to stay in the consumer game versus commercial sales only. Dell realized this and acquired AlienWare. It's success is relative I suppose based on what was originally expected and projected but it helps illustrate the point. Agree? Again,Excellent article and feedback. I'm interested to hear more replies. We may be at the 2012 CES in January to show off some new ideas related to these points.

 

[DSpider]

Let's not forget that components today last much longer than their 8 year old equivalents. Today most (if not all) motherboards use solid capacitors. If the current setup is good enough for productive purposes such as office, graphic design, programming, etc., would you really buy another computer within the next 10 years (assuming you replace the PSU/motherboard maybe once or twice)? Probably not. By that time we'll all be wearing nanotech bracelets that can interface with a pair of glasses or contact lenses.

I can understand going into the software business. There are more than enough devices out there (including PCs) that can could use some. But then there's piracy... Hardware you can't really steal, but with software you have a choice to either pirate it or find alternatives (open-source alternatives, etc).