foolZONE Special Reports for April 1, 2006

by Lee H. Goldberg, Senior Computational and CPU Editor, analogZONE

April 1, 2006 San Jose, CA. In a bid to expand its presence in the emerging "digital lifestyle" market, Kompact Computers has introduced a new family of sport-utility computers (SUCs). Running counter to the current trend of smaller, sleeker cases, Kompact's Intimidator family of SUCs consists of a coffee table-sized housing which features a 350-W per channel 8.1 home theater sound system, a built-in +113-dBA sub-woofer, and an integrated cooler which holds up to 12 cans of your favorite beverage. Much of the remaining case volume is devoted to a cryogenic system used to cool the unit's mother board which includes 12 dual-core, 3-GHz Plentium-X CPUs, a 1.5-GHz front-side bus, and quad-interlaced 128-bit graphics chips. Intended for occasional backyard use, the unit's 350-lb case is fully waterproof and can be easily moved from place to place across the roughest lawns thanks to four mountain bike tires mounted integrally to the SUC's titanium shell.

Drawing just under 5 kW, the Intimidator still entitles its owners to federal green-computer tax credits, thanks to its EnergyStar certification. With half of its processors placed in idle mode and the cool neon case lighting dimmed, the unit exceeds the requirements of EnergyStar's special home-supercomputer category which the Environmental Protection Agency added to its qualification specification last year at the request of the computer industry. Customers who don't want to go through the expense of wiring their house with the 3-phase, 220-V line power needed for the Intimidator can purchase an optional generator set which doubles as a welding rig, or as an emergency home power supply during blackouts.

"This computer is for people who want to make a statement," said Ted Maplesmith, Director of Global Marketing Strategies for Kompact's Digital Family Division. "The compute power we've packed into our line of SUCs is a bit of overkill for the average Joe Six-Gig who spends most of his or her time answering e-mail, surfing the Web and downloading porn, but it gives them the extra power they will need for extreme gaming on wall-sized HDTV displays, doing amateur medical imaging, or running home-brew computational fluid dynamics software," he concluded.

Maplesmith admitted that while most families would not buy the unit for its ability to do global climatic modeling in real time, they would really appreciate the air of rugged sophistication it would lend to any living room with standard features, such as a large cargo storage area and removable trim panels that come in a wide variety of colors to match your room's décor. An optional "enhanced digital lifestyle" package adds leather accent trim, an iPod docking station, alloy rims for the unit's transport wheels, and a pair of carbon fiber cup holders which retract into the unit when not at use.

With a base price of $25,000 a fully-loaded Intimidator SUC can run to $40,000. Special financing plans through Generalist Rotors Credit Corporation are available for qualified buyers. Generalist Rotors has also announced a program which offers preferred rates and a substantial discount on the sticker price when a purchase is part of a designer package that includes a special luxury edition Intimidator computer and a limited-edition color-coordinated version of their popular Kaddylack Explanade SUV.

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