$50,000 PCs?!!

The Register reports that a company called Truvia in San Francisco (which specialises in luxury furniture) is offering “designer” PCs starting at “only” $50,000:

Truvia will design the furniture you want around a high end PC. The actual PC hardware is expensive, but not that expensive, of course. The specifications from VoodooPC might typically include a terabyte of space, two TV tuners and fans allowing the machine to operate inaudibly. But it’s the custom fit and finish that justifies the tag, according to [company founder, John] Wojewidka. Each one takes several months to complete, and Truvia has its first customer. The founder says he’d be happy knocking out a couple of units a month.

OK. I guess some extremely rich people might justify $50,000 for a computer table. But the wierd thing is that the only people who’d currently want a terabyte of storage are audio and video editors (then again, perhaps some of those who work for companies like Pixar are rich enough to order one of these!) and places like universities and defence establishments. Then again, I do hope Truvia will make the computer upgradeable, because Mr Pixar will soon discover that his computer gear is outdated, even if his furniture is supposed to be!

But something else caught my eye, namely the reference to women wanting the looks and not wanting to see the technology. This kind-of reminded me of Volvo’s idea of a “women’s car”, which the stupid woman who buys it can’t repair, but rather, has to make a call to the dealer to get him (presumably) to do it:

“Apple nailed their target market; it’s very much an iconic aesthetic and it’s worked out fabulously; I’m a big fan of the high tech clean look. But my wife looks at a new iMac and thinks ‘iMac Schmimac!’. It just isn’t going to happen. While Apple has found a place to live and make money, I think there’s a whole other market there that hasn’t been addressed at all.”

An awful lot of men think that as well – despite the processor upgrade, you can no longer adjust the height of it, unlike the old G4 iMac. As for the “conservative furniture” people buy, you can’t really see much of my computer furniture because it’s covered in stuff – either computer gear or papers and cables. No doubt once the technology moves on the computer might be a museum piece, but then, surely the person who pays a five-figure sum for furniture wants it in his house, not the museum?