Xbit Labs did an interview with me the other day. It was a pretty deep Q&A about Voodoo, HP, Palm, webOS, etc.
Rahul Sood: Computing Devices of the New Era Need a Soul
by Anton Shilov
HP's plan to spin off its personal systems group caught everyone by surprise and results of such a move are hard to overestimate. Today we are talking to Rahul Sood, a co-founder of the legendary VoodooPC boutique PC maker and a former employee of HP. We will discuss Voodoo, HP in the past and now as well as the personal computer industry in general.
Our today's interlocutor - Rahul Sood - is a pretty legendary man from the PC industry. Mr. Sood founded VoodooPC, one of the first boutique PC brands in the world, back in 1991, years before many of today's companies that produce high-end hardware or PCs were established.
VoodooPC focused on creation of ultra high-end desktops for gaming or working, but eventually the company started to offer more affordable systems for multimedia to increase its footprint. The firm got acquired back in 2006 by Hewlett-Packard with the aim to leverage the DNA of high-quality Voodoo-branded products onto a wide range of PCs and peripherals.
Unfortunately, not everything went as planned, VoodooPC got dissolved in HP and Mr. Sood decided to leave the company to become a Microsoft employee. But, apparently, HP not only "managed" to absorb Voodoo without leaving a trace, but is also looking forward spinning off its personal systems group (PSG) as a whole. So, today we decided to talk to Rahul Sood to find out, what went wrong with VoodooPC within HP, what problems do PC makers face today and what should a PC company of the new era be like.
