Submitted by After Dell buying Alienware, HP has now bought VoodooPC. “Even though you may not know it, there is one thing about HP that makes them stand out among the rest: serious innovation. Backed by a USD 3.5+ billion dollar R&D budget, HP labs was generating an average of eleven unique patents a day. We’re not talking about ‘supply chain innovations’ either; they are sitting on a treasure trove of product innovations with massive potential. For me, getting a ticket into HP Labs would be like Charlie getting a ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. I was relentless… Yes, HP was/is the company that both my brother and I agreed is the perfect match for Voodoo.”
a company like VoodooPC with this kind of R+D should produce some WONDERFUL products (none of which I can afford, but wonderful nonetheless!)
And HP is the company that killed off the Alpha processor, Tru64 and HPUX in a bid to become Dell.
While I can’t say anything about whether or not those were indeed good investments to begin with, HP sounded like they were cutting BACK on research… I guess that’s changed since I last read about HP (which is apparently a while ago- Carly(?) Fiorina was president then; this article says the CEO is someone named Mark Hurd)
Edited 2006-09-29 15:55
When Dell bought Alienware I didn’t understand the reasons behind the acquisition. I felt that Alienware had become more generic over the past couple years to the point that they didn’t seem that much different from the XPS series that Dell started other than the obvious difference of using AMD chips. It’s even harder for me to understand the acquisition now that Dell is using AMD chips and Intel has the best high end processors.
This news is much easier for me to understand, and I hope it goes well for both companies. Despite the fact that I’ve heard complaints from a number of people about HP computers my experience with them has always been good. And, while I’ve never been able to afford a VoodooPC, I have always admired them from a distance. I actually hope that this acquisition will create a partnership that allows good economy of scale without compromising the quality of what VoodooPC has offered for years. I’m also hoping that there will be some carryover of ideas from VoodooPC into HP products.
I think that there will be a bit of a carry over. Hopefully we will see the high performance of Voodoo PCs end up in the more affordable HP product lines.
Everything isn’t always rosy with Voodoo PCs however. We actually have two Voodoo laptops and both have had a few problems. Overall they have been wonderful machines however at what they cost, I expect less issues than what we have encountered.
One of the machines went south on us. No big deal, it happens to the best but it took six weeks for them the fix it. We had asked for weekly updates but never received any and call each week ourselves asking status and for regular updates. We finally got word today (we called them) that the machine was fixed. The big reason for the delay was some of the parts needed were back ordered and that particular model is no longer offered (sad since it’s one of the lightest machine they ever built).
The second machine is a very good machine but in a few places sufferes from some poor workmanship. One of the “feet” came off of the machine after about a week, there was a wire poking out from the body that was being pinched by the battery, some of the paint was not evenly applied. Just little things. Great laptop, but I don’t think it was worth the price we paid.
On another note, the rep at Voodoo seemed quite pleased by the turn of events with HP and said that they (at Voodoo) did not expect to see many changes in the way they do business.
“Even though you may not know it, there is one thing about HP that makes them stand out among the rest: serious innovation”
er, yeah, like perhaps selling another company’s popular MP3 player with only the HP logo to differentiate.
“er, yeah, like perhaps selling another company’s popular MP3 player with only the HP logo to differentiate.”
You better watch what you say MikeGA. Someone at HP might surreptitiously get your phone records, then your address and then GET YOU!!!
this looks like a great move for them. the blog post is long and heart felt, interesting read. this doesn’t look like your typical corporate sell out (read alienware). the same people will remain in charge at voodoo to continue to promote the company’s original vision and now they can do so with massive amounts of new resources.
Vodoo PC makes really awsome machines.Congrats HP 🙂