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Tech Trends'08: Personalized Computing

By Aloysius Low - 19 Jan 2008

Now's The Moment

The Current Situation

Breaching the gap between the casual consumer's desire for personalizing their computers and the limitations of the casual consumer was the introduction of skins. Hopping on the skinning bandwagon early in May this year was Hewlett-Packard, through their introduction of their marketing campaign, where customers were told that "The computer is personal again". It made consumers sit up and take notice that their computers were very much part of their lives and something they had already personalized with their memories and thoughts.

By offering their customers the availability to cover their brand new computers with designs of their choice, HP became a smash hit with consumers. They were able to use their own personal photos, or custom designs to skin their products, or choose something that was already designed by someone that they liked.

Customise your laptop and do a good deed with these designs from HP's website. Only 500 copies each design are available and proceeds will go to DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS.

While Dell did attempt to follow suit about two months later (by launching their "Purely You" campaign), it was by then, a little too late for Dell as HP continued to surge ahead, overtaking Dell for the first time since 2003. It is also interesting to note before HP started their marketing blitz, Dell had acquired Alienware in March 2006 to reach out to gamers, while HP recently acquired VoodooPC, both recognizing a need to reach out to the gaming market (where their target group of gamers were pretty much individuals who wanted to stand out with their systems).

Also doing their part for charity was this customised Dell XPS WoW laptop that was painted by Mike Laville. Only two were custom painted and have already been sold but you can still get the normal WoW Laptops with the standard designs on their website.

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