TV maker Vizio turns to computers, takes on Apple
IRVINE, Calif. -- Vizio is no stranger to defying the odds.
The once little-known company came from practically nowhere to become one of the USA's biggest TV makers, wresting the title from the top electronics companies, including Sony. Its co-founder and CEO survived a plane crash more than a decade ago.
But now the company is making a move some say is so daring, it's almost crazy: taking on the world's biggest PC makers — including Apple.
Consumers don't have to wait long to see Vizio launch what could be one of the biggest disruptions to the computer business in years. The Irvine, Calif.-based company, located in an area between Los Angeles and San Diego, down the road from a Christmas tree farm, plans next month to launch a line of computers. It will sell two ulta-thin notebooks, a laptop and two desktop computers that feature high-style design. And leveraging its household name in millions of living rooms, its computers will be designed to be easy to set up and get going right out of the box.
The pitch is simple: Vizio aims to give consumers computers a fit and finish that rivals Apple's Macintosh, yet running the familiar Microsoft Windows software that powers 90% of the world's computers. Vizio plans to pull this off with a lineup of stylish computers in carefully machined aluminum bodies carved by robots. And as it did with its flat-screen TVs, it will do so at competitive prices.
"PCs have become a sea of black plastic," says Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matt McRae, describing the lineup of Windows-based computers from other manufacturers, many of which focus on corporate customers where design is an afterthought. "We're building a product people want."
Vizio gets input from suppliers
In the process, Vizio has torn up the playbook on how PCs are designed and marketed. It is pioneering a sort of casual joint venture, which gives makers of parts that go inside the computers great say in how the system is designed.
Vizio is taking the role of a general contractor, overseeing the big-picture but relying on partners for technical help. The computers' innards are optimized with suggestions from Microsoft and Intel, the companies that know the key components best and spend billions annually on research and development. Vizio has just a few hundred employees, and a small staff of engineers.
"Vizio is doing a good job listening and taking advice from the experiences on how to optimize hardware and software," says Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of Microsoft's OEM division, adding that Microsoft is willing to provide technical assistance to any of its partners.
Intel collaborates with all the PC makers that use its chips. But Vizio contacted the computer chipmaker very early in the process and "wanted to learn all we had to teach them," says Intel's Gary Richman, director of marketing for the PC client solution division that cooks up innovated designs that use the company's chips.
That leaves Vizio to focus on the consumer experience, making sure the PC looks and works the way it should, right from the get-go. As evidence of its commitment to consumers over profit, it's forsaking the industry's long practice of loading new computers with "crapware" software, which they're paid to install, but that many times hurt the performance of the computers.
