SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Computers built in America, why it is possible, and the niche it fills.

It has been many, many years since we have seen computers built in the US. Go to any computer store, and look at the computers they have, they are almost guaranteed to be built in China, Taiwan, or Mexico. If you are truly lucky, you may even get a laptop built in Japan (expect to pay outrageous amounts for them though). However, it is almost impossible to purchase to purchase a computer made in the USA as of now.

My computer is made in Canada, made in my basement, by me. For the longest time, I have assumed that self-built computers are the only computers that you would see that are made in the USA, Canada or [insert any developed nation besides Japan and South Korea]. I have always assumed that brand name computers are all made in developing countries, by one of the huge OEMs like Foxconn.

I have never had a good experience with the "Big Box" computer companies. HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Gateway, etc, they have always left a bad taste in my mouth. The build quality for their mainstream lines are almost always shoddy, the quality is almost always bad. In fact, I absolutely loath the fact that the mainstream PC companies simply believe "high end = powered by powerful chips", the fact that often, their "design" process simply involves wrapping chips in a plastic shell does not help my perception of them at all.

A lady that lives near me asked me for some advice on a computer purchase last week. She wanted to purchase a laptop for her son's birthday. Her son is entering middle school, and wants his own gaming computer, but it has to be small. She said that she wants a mid to high end laptop, preferably smaller, with good gaming performance for her son. I LOVE 11 - 12 inchers (yeah, yeah, that's what she said), and usually, I would recommend the magnificent Alienware MX11. However, it is no longer available (really inexplicable if you ask me).

11 - 12 inch laptops with decent gaming performance is almost impossible to find. I'm not asking for outrageous SLI i7 based systems, just something with respectable gaming performance. However, most 11 - 12 inch systems are either netbooks, or ultraportables. You will rarely get a graphics card above an Intel HD 4000, games are pretty much unplayable even at a modest 1280 * 800 resolution.

With the mainstream market void of good gaming systems, I had to look outside the box. I had to venture into the boutique computer category, or sometimes affectionately known as the "Ferraris and Lamborghinis of computers".

So what is a boutique PC manufacturer? Well considering that we are on subsim, a gaming site, I would presume that most of us here are pretty tech savvy, I would presume that the majority of us has assembled a computer before. I would also assume, that many of us have assembled computers for friends before too. Well, the boutique PC company plays the role of the "tech savvy friend", you customize a PC from one of their builds on the site, and they build and mail it to you.

I have never seriously looked at buying from them before, as I build my own desktops (sure, people say "made in Germany" implies immaculate craftsmanship, but lets me honest, "made by me" oozes pride), and as for laptops, I have always preferred business laptops, even though I am a gamer. I checked out a few, Origin PC, Sager, iBuyPower, and Digital Storm. I have a friend who is a Digital Storm customer, and he has nothing but praise for them, so I decided to check them out.

I never really cared where a computer is built to be honest, since its pretty much either China, Taiwan, or Mexico. But when I went on their site, Digital Storm was advertising the immaculate craftsmanship of their technicians; Something that computer companies NEVER advertise. After all, what can HP and Apple really advertise, the quality of the Foxconn assembly lines?

I dug around and this is what I found: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/fo...847&FID=1&PR=3

WOW, I was genuinely surprised, computers actually being assembled in the US? and American call centers?

This piqued my interest, and I tried to figure out how these boutique PC companies operate. I find their process and business model highly interesting. So just how do they create these custom gaming laptops? Well, this is how they do it:

First of all, a boutique PC company tries to keep minimum inventory. At the super high end market that these companies usually operate at, computer components get outdated really quickly. Unlike traditional PC OEMs, who sell millions of computers a week, these boutique companies do not purchase components in by the millions. They keep the bare minimum amount to operate, and they usually have a rapid supply schedule.

There is one exception to the above rule though, and that is cases. Unlike the boutique sports car, the boutique gaming PC does not look "better" than their mainstream competitors. Every single boutique PC company starts with the Clevo laptop cases. Clevo is a big Taiwanese ODM, and they make the most common laptop cases that all of these boutique PC companies use. They do not have the manufacturing capability to create their own cases, so Clevo barebones are used instead. Clevo supplies a common barebones platform, which includes a case, a screen, a keyboard, and a motherboard. Almost every boutique PC starts off as a Clevo barebones kit.

When a customer places an order, the PC gets assembled by hand, in an American facility. Obviously, much more care and attention is put into a custom PC than the mass produced assembly line laptops you see at best buy. Each PC is custom built for the customer, with at most a tiny inventory of the most popular configurations.

You don't see demo units of these boutique PC companies in stores like Best Buy, simply because the volume is so low. they cannot afford to place a demo unit in every big box store out there. However, this does not impact the customer's choice, as for the most part, the only difference between the models is simply the chips inside, on the outside, its all just the same clevo barebones.

This kind of flexibility allows the boutique companies a lot of freedom in their configurations. And this is precisely why they can offer super high performance machines, where companies such as HP and Apple cannot deliver.

Consider the 2000 + computer market. For the most part, this market is NOT dominated by super high performance machines. You see machines that are business orientated (HP Elitebook, Lenovo Thinkpad, Fujitsu Lifebook, etc), machines that have good "external specs", but not extremely powerful internally (MacBook Pro), and your hardened, tough computer (Panasonic Toughbook). Thing is though, you do not usually see extreme performance machines, with the exception of Dell's Alienware.

The traditional PC OEMs simply are not nimble enough to compete in the super high end. The technology iterates too fast, and the slow supply schedules of the mainstream OEMs cannot hope to match that. This is where the Boutique PC shines, only the smaller boutique companies can hope to create the 3000+ super laptops.

The boutique business model works, it works rather well. However, it does not scale up. The only way these boutique PC companies have scaled up is if they are acquired, like Alienware. But then, they lost the boutique qualities, and they usually end up as simply a high end line of one of the big OEMs.

It is possible to make computers in the USA, it is possible to provide tech support in the USA; It is possible to succeed in the USA. When the politicians fight about jobs leaving, understand that it is possible to make computers in the US. Just think about it as the Ferraris of the Computer world, custom built for discerning customers, not the mainstream Toyotas.