Irvine’s Gateway Inc. has jumped on the “computer-as-fashion-accessory” bandwagon.
Last month, Gateway started shipping two lines of colored notebook PCs to retailers.
The models come in “crimson red,” “Pacific blue” or “slate grey,” according to Gateway’s Web site. Prices start at about $900.
Earlier this year, Gateway Chief Executive Ed Coleman laid out his vision for the struggling computer maker. Notebooks that make a style statement by way of compelling design figure large in his strategy to compete with Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
“These new products further reinforce that the industry is moving to a vastly stronger design focus and Gateway is serious about leading that effort,” said analyst Rob Enderle, of San Jose-based Enderle Group, in a recent note.
But Gateway may be a bit late to the party.
“This idea of being able to pick the color of your PC was pioneered and then abandoned by Apple (Inc.),” Enderle said.
Some years ago, Apple’s design gurus revived interest in Mac desktops when it debuted them in shocking orange and turquoise a few years back.
Apple since has nixed the color laptop idea,opting for sleek design in white.
Sony Corp. did it next with its Vaio laptops.
This year, Dell got rid of its standard black and shiny silver laptop shells with the release of its Inspiron notebooks. Dell is looking to inspire buyers to part with an extra $30 for colors like “sunshine yellow,” “flamingo pink,” “ruby red,” “espresso brown,” “spring green” and “midnight blue.”
“HP, Dell and Gateway are all chasing each other with design,” Enderle said. “Choices are getting much more interesting as a result. It looks like the time for the plain gray laptop is gone.”
QLogic Unit Sale
Aliso Viejo’s QLogic Corp., which makes adapters, switches and other gear for speeding the flow of data on networks, sold a small business to a Massachusetts maker of supercomputers.
Maynard, Mass.-based SiCortex Inc. got QLogic’s “compiler” business, which translates computer codes for software into languages that supercomputers can understand.
Terms of the deal, which closed at the end of July, weren’t disclosed.
About nine QLogic workers, based out of Mountain View, are set to become SiCortex employees, according to Brian Day, chief financial officer of SiCortex.
QLogic acquired the division through a deal in February of last year, when the company paid about $109 million for Mountain View-based PathScale Inc.
The company wanted PathScale’s Infiniband technology, which speeds up data moving between servers and runs with the Linux operating system.
PathScale’s compiler business likely wasn’t of much use to QLogic, Day said.
“It was clear to us that this part of PathScale really didn’t fit with what QLogic was trying to do with their business,” he said. “This is a compiler that works with high performance computers, and QLogic is doing more networking type gear.”
QLogic has made a big push to re-brand itself as a provider of systems and services, not just a maker of parts that comprise networks, Chief Executive H.K. Desai recently said.
Tech Shop Buy
The Newport Beach office of technology consulting firm Tryarc LLC was bought by The Revere Group, a Chicago-based business consultancy.
Terms of the deal, which closed Aug. 1, weren’t disclosed.
Revere, part of Tokyo’s NTT Data Corp., bought Los Angeles-based Tryarc as part of a West Coast push.
It’s looking to gain clients among entertainment companies, healthcare providers and medical device makers.
Revere is going after business with Orange County’s many Japanese companies with operations here, according to Michael Horne, executive vice president of the Western region.
“One of our big targets will be Japanese multinational companies in Southern California,” Horne said. “We plan to have a very dedicated focus on that.”
OC is home to plenty of them, including Toshiba Corp. in Irvine and Tustin, Ricoh Co. in Tustin, Buena Park-based Yamaha Corporation of America, part of Yamaha Corp., and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.’s Panasonic Aviation Corp. in Lake Forest.
In 2005, Revere was bought by NTT Data, which had about $7 billion in sales last year.
Tryarc has about 20 people in Newport Beach and plans to expand.
Revere is set to hire about 100 workers locally within the next three years, Horne said.
“I would think the OC area would grow faster than our other (California) offices,” he said.
Two of Tryarc’s senior managers are based out of OC.
Tryarc has about 70 workers in Los Angeles and 10 in San Francisco, Horne said.
