Jon Peddie puts his extensive industry knowledge to work identifying viable white box markets.

Veteran industry pundit and high-tech soothsayer Jon Peddie is celebrating the 18th year of his consulting and market research firm, not a small task when you consider the speed at which technology changes. So, when he starts to talk about technology trends, people tend to listen. His keynote dealing with the state of the industry for high-end white box systems focused on the aforesaid machines and the different market segments they can address. According to Peddie, the white box markets include Gaming and Enthusiast PCs, Entertainment PCs, Connoisseur and Hot Shot PCs and Workstations. The market offers many opportunities for both white box builders and component suppliers. "The difference between a gaming PC and an entry-level to midrange workstation is the quality of audio and maybe the disk size," Peddie says. "Therefore, gaming PCs and generic workstations dovetail neatly to be easily sourceable from the same graphics AIB suppliers, such as ATI with its Radeon series or Nvidia' GeForce FX."

Technical workstations, where high-end CAD is used, require workstation graphics such as AIBs from 3Dlabs (Wildcat), ATI (FireGL), or Nvidia (Quadro).

For the different market segments, Peddie makes a number of suggestions for adding value and standing out from the crowd in the white box market. For the Gaming and Enthusiast PC you should look at throwing bells and whistles like a fast over-clocked CPU, the most high-speed memory, the biggest hard disk, the baddest graphics AIB, the loudest sound system, the best display and the coolest, open, piped, neon lit box.

In the entertainment PC market, you can produce different units on two platforms: Linux-based (ABMS) or Windows-based (Media Center Edition). Added value for EPDs can be achieved by installing a TV tuner card, a huge hard disk, a great graphics card, a R/W DVD drive, great audio, speakers, loads of applicable software and a big screen LCD display. Peddie makes the point that "Connoisseur" and "Hot Shot" PCs are made for the enthusiast who is not a game player. This consumer wants the best, wants style and wants to brag about having the machine custom built for their needs. These folks, Jon says, are ready to spend money.

As far as defining segments, the workstation market includes DCC and video editing professionals, stock traders and investors, CAD/CAM designers and architects. The gaming and enthusiast PC, Peddie says, is highly overrated, while it is possibly the most exciting segment. This is broken down into The "Game Enthusiast" and the "Casual Gamer," the distinction being that The Enthusiast spends $1,000 to $2,000 a year on equipment and games.

Peddie estimates there are as many as 5 million of these players. The Casual player, on the other hand spends $500 to $800 a year and there are 20 million to 30million of them. Where's the money? Here are the dollar breakdowns and trends:

With workstations, Peddie estimates that you are "fishing in the tide pools," with sales nearly flat for the past few years. However, he says the game market can bring in as much as 30 million units, the EPC market up to 15 million units and the connoisseur market up to 5 million units.

The total potential market for whitebox units is 52 million worldwide. The potential market in the U.S. is 18 million units. However, as a parting thought, Peddie had this observation: "If you don't know the apps that will be running on the machines, don't attempt to serve the market - especially with workstations," he says.