Competitors with Web sites

competitor, n.

The contestant you hope to defeat

Competitors’ sites open in a new browser window.  To return to demCC.com close the competitors’ window.  We challenge any of them to link to demCC.  And here are our competitors, in reverse alphabetical order:

Vonel Lamour of LamourInc.com is a friend so we’re using his first name as an excuse to put him at the top of the list.  Buy a computer from his company or a Haitian Pride T-shirt— or better yet by a T-shirt from him and a computer from us.

Toshiba, the electronics manufacturer, sells their limited line of laptops through a poor interface.  No customization.  [2003 Februrary 23]

S.E.C. Custom Computers Inc. has a main page I hate, but a good order form.

PCs for Everyone, “Cambridge/Boston area's headquarters for Custom-built Computer Systems and Parts,” has quite good choice within certain ranges (and limited to what they have in stock at the moment), reasonable prices, and an overwhelming but informative and functional preliminary order form.  They are our closest competitor.

PCwiseguise Computer and Business Systems does not pretend to offer customized computers and has no on-line ordering; but they do sell Apple computers.

Northwest Custom Computers really specializes in silent PC parts.

IBM had a confusing array of models and no customization.  Now they have an almost straightforward set of models and a teeny bit of customization available on each one.

Hewlitt-Packard (HP) has a really nice-looking site, but their “customize-able” options aren’t worth the effort it takes to get to them.

Gateway sells you a piece of junk and then provides excellent customer service, thus netting themselves many loyal customers.  We think it’s easier to buy a computer that won’t break down in the first place.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Europe’s largest computer manufacturer, doesn’t sell through its web site.  Their United Kingdom site at least links to sellers, but good luck finding the same product you were just looking at.  Customization is not even a remote dream.  DemCC is considering simply taking the European market away from these jokers.

eMachines has few choices and no customization.  They project the image of being inexpensive by leaving off their $200 monitor, hoping you won’t realize that what they’re selling for $399 (that’s $400, folks, don’t be fooled) is really $600 and not as good a deal as what others are selling for $500.  (Stay with demCC, of course, for the best price and the most choice.)

Dell Computer Corporation has a slow-loading site at which only its constantly changing “special offers” are at all readily accessible; it relies on mail-in rebates and excluding monitors to display competitive prices.  Microsoft Windows is installed whether the customer wants to it (and the extra expense) or not.  Follows the standard procedure of separating its PCs into nonsense categories, making even virtual customization (picking closest fit to your needs from many computers) practically impossible.

Customized Computer Design, Inc (CCD) offers no customization (or online sales, for that matter).

Custom Computers, the main man of which is Jeremy Garcia, at least has a mostly text web site.

ComputerOutlet Worldwide sells notebooks (new, used, refurbished; IBM, HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Apple).  Can search by price; “add” (to buy) failed.

Apple, unsurprisingly, sells Macintosh computers and offers a small amount of customization in hard drives, memory, and graphics as a matter of course.

Affordable Computers, Inc., has a usable site and sells whatever they happen to have on hand (as most places do, the bigger places can just disguise it better).  does not offer custom computers at all but

Acer makes laptops and desktops .

NOW DEFUNCT: A1 Custom Computers offers custom personal computers and laptops made with “brand name components to assure quality.”  Slick home page, but if their store – is it their store?  It is a frame which does not include their name – if the store they offer is customization, then Henry Ford never knew how close he was: ‘You can have any color Model T that you want, so long as it is black.’  He only needed to add: ‘Alternatively, sometimes you can have no paint, and at other times you can have an extra coat of black paint.’

If you know of a computer seller with a Web site that we left out, please e-mail webmaster@demcustomcumputers.com or otherwise contact demCC.