In a comparison of the components prevalent in the vast majority of desktop and notebook computers produced today, there’s an alarmingly low level of differentiation present.
That’s because over the past decade companies like Intel, AMD and nVidia have been doing everything they can to lock-down and protect the building blocks they make available to the large computing brands says Terence Barter, Dell product manager at Tarsus Technologies.
Exacerbating this, he adds, the price-consciousness in the industry has forced both large and small vendors to outsource their manufacturing to huge facilities in the Far East.
“While on the one hand, this has brought an unrivalled level of stability and predictability to the computing industry, it has inadvertently killed off the innovation and differentiation that once made this market such a vibrant one to be involved in,” he says.
“It has meant that today, the internal componentry that makes up a modern notebook or desktop, as well as the workmanship that goes into the mix is almost identical across 90% of the industry’s brands,” he says.
“And quite frankly, looking at the vast majority of offerings available today, it shows,” he says.
However, Barter believes there’s still some room for differentiation. “And it’s something that a handful of vendors will continue trading on over the next decade.”
Barter says inspiring industrial design – how products look and feel when they’re being used – along with devices’ build quality and the integration that exists between software and hardware will be key selling points over the coming years.
“The price bands have been carved in stone,” he says. “It’s now up to the vendors to see how much they can differentiate the experience of using one of their products without breaking those boundaries.”
What makes this exciting, he says, is that these differentiators cannot be compared to one another in a spreadsheet, or tabulated logically.
“It’s all about an emotive response and this swings the industry wide open again. If nothing else, this will inject a new sense of opportunity into the industry – something in my opinion that’s sorely needed.”