Lots of Life Left in the PC Biz

This last weekend, my home desktop PC started making all kinds of obscene noises. Suddenly, my hard drive sounds like a piece of heavy machinery with a bolt loose. Despite this incredible racket, the system continues to chug along performing it's mission critical tasks: recording TV shows and saving them for me.

Nonetheless, I have seized upon the opportunity to buy a new PC and have started searching for possible options. It's very easy to run out of "name brand" players in about 5 minutes. Lenovo does not offer a media center PC. HP and Dell both offer Media Center PCs, as well as Alienware (part of Dell) and Gateway.

I kept looking, and, to my surprise, found at least a dozen other PC makers offering up customized Media Center PCs. All these other PC companies seem to be focused on the high end, with prices started at $900 and rising well above $3,000 for decked-out gaming systems with multi-core processors.

Clearly, someone is making money in the PC business, and all this little niche players are showing the way forward. They invariably offer high end performance, sleek product cases and form factors that are closer to a bulky VCR than a desktop PC. They are earning premium pricing (and presumably margins) from all this customization.