Would you like Fries with that?

http://www.fastcompany.com/news/2008/10/29-intel-asus-wepc-microsoft-xbox-360-avatars.html

How much longer before buying a computer is like going to the drive-through?

I found this article at fastcompany.com, and it's about a new website called WePC. Here's the brief synopsis, taken from the Fast Company article, written by Chris Dannen:

"...users can discuss the ideal features of their dream-laptops, and even “build” a virtual version of their perfect machine. Ideas contributed so far: waterproof keyboards, roll-up displays, complete upgradability, and so on. Naturally, the present-day specs of several Asus/Intel laptops are never more than a click away, lest you create your dream machine and discover that, Lo! It's the same as a computer Asus already makes"

So, clearly there's a dual benefit here: Asus is crowdsourcing their research to you, and when you go to make a recommendation, you find that, sometimes, what you wanted was already there waiting for you! So they not only make you feel like your input is appreciated, but they can make a sale as well, all in the same visit. Pretty clever. This reminds me of something like threadless.com, the t-shirt company who solicits t-shirt designs from the crowd, the crowd then votes, and the winner's design gets sold on their website to the masses. It's also much like the Zara model, where the company takes customer feedback and attempts to implement it - because who knows best what the customer wants? Well, the customer, of course!

So this got me to thinking: how long before buying your computer is like going to the drive through lane at McDonald's? Imagine: you walk into the computer section at Best Buy, pick the components/features/software you need, a technician runs to the back of the store, and 3 minutes later you've got your personalized cpu. Now, if Dell could manufacture a computer in 3 minutes, why couldn't they do it in the backroom at Best Buy? I know the software takes time to test, but surely that process could be sped up. (In fact, the article mentions how Best Buy has already started to do this, with certain models of Toshiba and HP. But it's in its infancy). Now, maybe I'm out-of-touch and this is already happening somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet - at least not to the extent that I'm describing.

The article goes on to talk about how Microsoft's XBox is now customizable in that you can create an avatar that will go with your profile no matter what game you're playing - but this part of the article was of less interest to me.

Anyway, interesting stuff, and I imagine this do-it-yourself computer customization is not far away for us. Would you like software with that?