HP Digs Deeper into Gaming with VoodooPC Buy

By Colleen Taylor -- Electronic News, 9/29/2006

Hewlett-Packard is getting deeper into PC gaming. The company today announced it has inked a definitive agreement to acquire high-performance gaming PC vendor VoodooPC with plans to form a separate business unit within its personal systems group focused on the gaming industry.

Set to close by November, the transaction will see VoodooPC co-owner Rahul Sood become chief technologist for the unit and co-owner Ravi Sood become the unit's director of strategy. Both executives will report to Phil McKinney, who will become general manager of the gaming business unit while maintaining his current role as CTO of HP's personal systems group.

"We're absolutely thrilled to welcome VoodooPC, gaming industry pioneers and the premier name in gaming, to the HP team," Todd Bradley, executive VP of HP's personal systems group, said in a statement. "Together with VoodooPC's leadership and influence, HP will have the expertise to become the leader in the gaming customer segment."

The deal hearkens back to Dell's acquisition in March of high-end gamer PC company Alienware, which also marked the company's first association with chips made by Advanced Micro Devices.  Prior to the Alienware purchase, Dell had solely used Intel processors. Since March, Dell has begun to incorporate AMD chips into its products.

Financial details of the HP acquisition were not disclosed. HP plans to maintain VoodooPC's current distribution model and brand name along with its marketing, sales, support and development operations.