PCs get a wow factor

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is riding high on its recent participation in Wills India Fashion Week. And now they are studying consumer behaviour in mobile phone and car market to understand what the youth wants. We already see notebook range with exterior patterns coordinated with a desktop screensaver, international colour palette, polite corners and feather touch buttons. It might be too early to talk of returns, but design seems to be the best way to differentiate themselves today.

Industry insiders see the stress on design as a means to salvage the shrinking margins. Style comes handy if you want to make more money out of every machine you sell. With each brand making something for everyone, design seems to be a handy differentiator. “Today, one expects a notebook to be ahead of a PC. It needs to be sitting comfortably in an office and also bring in style when one is at a cafe with a friend. More than the exterior colour or skin, we see experiments done with engineering design. We have tried to refine the looks of laptops through a prism finish, ebony/ivory keys,” says George Paul, executive vice-president, marketing, HCL. “Our designs focus on providing each segment with what is most important to them and their application usage,” says Acer India chief marketing officer, S Rajendran.

Earlier, similar attempts have been made with designer skins. HP, for one, tied up with fashion designer Suneet Varma and also launched a contest jointly with MTV to embellish its laptops. “Our brief is to give our consumers a perfect blend of functionality and aesthetics. The appeal of our latest laptop range has features like quick play, feather touch buttons to in-built screensavers matching the exterior skin. The experience has to be perfect with a machine becoming one’s next style statement,” explains Chahil.