Analysis - Designs on your desktop

Henry Ford once famously offered customers of the Model T Ford theunch of the stylish iMac range. But would the design-led PC be too risky a concept to sell? choice of 'any colour as long as it's black'. This restrictive approach to colour seems to have acted as inspiration to the majority of PC manufacturers, who stubbornly continue to offer systems in any colour as long as it's beige.

Apple was brave enough to break the mould with its fruit-hued iMacs, blueberry and ice-white G3 desktops, and matching Studio Display monitors.

The subsequent success of the iMac has acted as a wake-up call to PC manufacturers who have maintained that design wasn't a key consideration for consumers.

Lisa Clark, senior product marketing manager of consumer products, for PC giant Compaq, claims it was easier for Apple to make such a radical departure from the beige box because: 'The Macintosh is more of a niche product and attracts different customers, so (Apple) has more freedom.' She points out that Compaq has experimented with different designs, including an all-in-one design, similar to the iMac, and a desktop with an integrated flat panel display, but neither of these proved to be a huge success.

Clark also says: 'We've had different coloured PCs, but we didn't see any dramatic impact on sales.'

Maybe not, but the slinky curves of the iMac certainly seem to have won it more than a few fans, reversing Apple's ailing fortunes in the process.

That said, design is not the only reason the iMac has achieved such success.

Apple has also managed to keep its price point low enough to effectively compete against low-end PCs. Clark says this is another stumbling block when it comes to introducing funky new designs. Financially, Apple didn't have much to lose when it came out with the iMac. After years of teetering in and out of the red, it could afford to take a risk with a new concept, whereas a design mistake in the competitive PC market could prove fatal or, at the very least, extremely costly.

In an attempt to overcome this resistance to change, chip manufacturer Intel held a 'PC Fashion Show' at its recent Developer Forum to showcase a range of concept PCs built around its motherboards and processors. Design agencies worked on an open brief to find innovative ways of implementing a PC, and the results represented a radical departure from traditional systems.

Anderson Design's Velocity Group stole the show with the Ikebana, which took its inspiration from the Japanese form of flower arranging. A modular system allows components to be plugged into a solid base unit, which houses the motherboard. In effect the group came up with a PC as far removed from the beige box as the Ford Ka is from a Model T.

On a more realistic note, Intel also introduced its FlexATX mini motherboard, which it claims heralds an era of more flexible PC design criteria. BC Ooi, vice-president and co-general manager, of Intel's OEM platform solutions division, says: 'FlexATX will give increased design flexibility to PC manufacturers by enhancing usable motherboard and system space and improving the size and location of component placement zones on the motherboard.

It will help them stay competitive on price, features and time-to-market opportunities.'

It remains to be seen whether these innovative ideas will ever make it onto the shelves of Dixons or PC World, but as PCs become less of a techie tool and more of a consumer item, design will undoubtedly play a bigger part in the battle for differentiation in a competitive marketplace.

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