That space means a sizeable chassis.

Maybe not ‘Stacker-city’, but something where the air can flow, components can be easily accessed/upgraded, noise is minimised and the PC ‘does the job’.

Sure, the mass market will always be sad, middle-aged men hanging on in quiet desperation as Mr P. Floyd said, but Theo is right that your nads only tighten when a serious muscle machine fires up – be that car or PC.

For years, ATI focused on the ‘nice & safe mass market’ – while nVidia ‘lived the dream’ with SLi etc – even when these technologies were in their infancy and not working 100%.

Result? Mass-market movement to nVidia – with turnover touching $4Bn.

Intel spent years focusing on the nice and safe Pentium 4 technology while AMD produce Hot Rod FX chips etc.

Result? Massive market increase for AMD.

Intel launched their own $1,000 hot rods and what happened ?

Small, neat and safe is always going to be appealing to middle aged guys with bicycles…

…but somewhere inside all of us, there’s a horned monster that feels most alive next to death – when the boundries are being pushed – and we can ‘do stuff our neighbours cannot’.

I reckon the high end is safe ;~)

We can discuss the impact of IT on a lot of things, but one thing that Bright Side is not going to tolerate is marketing spin.
And when it comes to Blackbird 003, I don’t see a reason why they didn’t refresh the 002 and kept in sales for 2000 USD and went to hit 1000 or 1500 with the new one.

All that I see here is opposite of their stance with Envy 133. And that’s a shame. But when it comes to looking at a bigger picture, saying “customers don’t want and don’t need 5.000 or 10.000 systems” is equal to Rick Wagoner stating that “customers didn’t want our pickups”. Customers will pay for good product, that’s it.

Price is not all that important, but whoever sings the price song alone is obviously in the wrong business. You have to have a price-aware product range, but if you are a car manufacturer that does not offer street versions of racing cars, if you’re cellphone manufacturer that only manufactures cheap schyte, well, your days are over when Apple shows up.

Personally, I am surprised at shortsightedness in this industry, because I saw a lot of individuals at very high places showing lack of understanding for way how we humans work. We want better, faster, stronger… and after you buy your first product in the particular industry, you want the second product to be better, more comfortable, etc etc… some companies in this industry are obviously coping with that concept.

When it comes to companies to watch, wait and see what will Acer and ASUS do with One and EEE. Perfect deployment of future buyers of their own notebooks and desktops.