Rahul Sood was tight lipped on HP's new gaming PCs his team is working on. The new mainstream machines will leverage some of the technologies developed at HP Labs and fill the gap between the high-end, "extremely personable" and expensive Voodoo PCs and the current line of HP machines used by casual gamers. "We want our competitors to sleep easy until that day", joked Rahul. But eventually, the new technologies developed for the Voodoo line will trickle down to the bottom of the pyramid. "Gamers are two years ahead", said HP CTO Phil McKinney.

At HP we have three master brands. Compaq is the basic of the pyramid, very large volume, very reasonably priced, popular in emerging markets, lower configuration models and few configuration options. The HP computers are more personable, design is a big part of our business. Finally, Voodoo is at the top of the pyramid, with extreme personalisation, people can buy any colour they want, any tattoo, any amounts of designs, materials they want to put in their systems, whatever their imagination is we can make it happen.