I was this afternoon at Kensington's headquarters in Redwood Shores to speak with the gadget maker's President, Boris Elisman (pictured).

My first surprise was to learn that this 25 years old high-tech company, focus on the $5 billion+ computer accessories market, is now part of the comparatively low-tech office product supplier Acco Brands that sells staplers, binders, day-timers, etc. Somewhat a similar strategy to consumer company Newell Rubermaid's that built a high-tech business acquiring companies like business card scanner Cardscan, label printer Dymo or whiteboard maker Mimio.

With competitors like Microsoft, Logitech, Belkin, Targus (channel driven), etc... Kensington' strategy is to focus on the $20-100 price range and building "smart made simple" PC and mobile (iPod, iPhone, MP3 players) accessories versus high-performance and high-end gadgets that tech-driven Logitech or Microsoft would make.

More on Kensington's strategy and an edited video of our conversation after the jump.

Some interesting tidbits that came out during our interview:

- The size of the computer accessories market is about $5 billion, growing 10% per year;

- Over 250 million PCs are shipped worldwide and the PC installed base has passed the billion unit mark. Not much though if you think that more than a billion cell phones will be sold this year!

- Elisman is seeing a worldwide economic slowdown, first in the U.S. and the UK, that will hurt Kensington's 11% year over year growth;

- Kensington positioned itself as end user driven versus technology or channel driven;

- Offers the broadest assortment of iPhone certified products of any other company. The iPhone accessory market will actually be the next wave of growth for Kensington;

- Kensington licenses some technology from Microsoft;

- Outsourcing 100% of manufacturing;

- Launched initiative to integrate green technologies into future products;

- Looking at 3D technologies probably for pointing devices like mouses;

- Will enter a new product category in the next year or 2.