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The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week
Page 2

Mouse Clicks
Disney's kiddie computer

2. M-I-C, K-E-Y, B-O-A-R-D
So Disney (DIS:NYSE - news - research) is getting into the computer business.

Lots of luck.

On Thursday, the multimedia conglomerate unveiled its new Disney Dream Desk PC -- we call it the DDDPC -- at a press event attended not only by Mickey Mouse himself, but by cast members from ABC's sitcom Hope & Faith and its soap opera One Life to Live.

Featuring a kid-friendly hardware design, lots of Internet-filtering software and all sorts of Disney-brand software, the PC has a suggested retail price of $898, mouse-eared monitor included.

Disney believes the product has the usual things going for it: demand from the underserved youth computer market, positive attributes of the Disney brand, nearly three years' worth of development.

But, cranks that we are at the research lab, all we can think of is the inauspicious history of consumer-branded personal computers.

Back in 1999, you may recall, Patriot Computers introduced the Mattel-licensed, his-and-her Hot Wheels and Barbie-branded PCs. A little more than a year later, Patriot was bankrupt.

In early 2002, news surfaced that Viacom's (VIAB:NYSE - news - research) MTV planned to market an MTV brand PC. But the product's subsequent disappearance makes us speculate that the total request for the MTV PC was, uh, dead.

Could it be that if parents are going to spend $900 on a computer, they want it to look like something their budding Einsteins will grow into, not out of?

A Disney spokeswoman dismisses our concerns, pointing to the value in such DDDPC elements as its proprietary movie, picture and audio software suite. "From a bundle perspective," she says, the DDDPC "really does demonstrate its value."

And after studying the Hot Wheels/Barbie debacle, she says, Disney folks concluded it wasn't a lack of demand that sunk Patriot. "It was a quality problem," she says.

Still, $900 for a kids' PC? No matter how cool it is, that strikes us as a little Goofy.

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So, who's interested in either the computer or watching Disney's stock go even lower?

The picture of the machine seems very easy on the eyes.


 

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Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 08-06-2004, 04:43 PM:
 
Damn! That is one ugly and tacky POS!

danny
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2004, 05:58 PM:
 
If you ever visited the "World of Disney" store at Disney World, you would know that "ugly and tacky" sometimes results in huge sales!

Still, this thing seems misguided at best. However, the way kids can whine these days and get anything they want, it might do all right.
 

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Posted by James B. Openshaw (Member # 1310) on 08-06-2004, 06:24 PM:
 
Here's some additional information on this $898...thing.

14.1" LCD-Flat Monitor
Lexmark Color Printer
Optical Pen
Kid-Sized Mouse
Multimedia Keyboard
Intel® Celeron® D Processor 330 (2.66 GHz, 256K L2 Cache, 533 MHz FSB)
Windows XP
40GB Hard Drive
256MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9100 PRO IGP Graphics Card
CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive

Although the article quotes it at $898, the Disney Store is selling it at the Disney price of $950.
 

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Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 08-06-2004, 08:42 PM:
 
Celeron? 256mb Ram? How the hell can you run Doom 3 on that???
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-06-2004, 10:32 PM:
 
Disney needs to die. Doom 3 is so cliché.[av=u]
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 08-07-2004, 02:50 PM:
 

quote: posted article

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Could it be that if parents are going to spend $900 on a computer, they want it to look like something their budding Einsteins will grow into, not out of?

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My thoughts exactly. I gather when kids grow up and leave for college, the computer they take with them is not a new, top-of-the-line, store-bought PC ... they take the POS they grew up with, and can't do , while the parents buy the new one.

Imagine moving into your freshman year dormroom and setting this thing up when your roommate walks in to meet you for the first time. But at this point there are stickers all over the ears, and the keyboard's all dirty ... I don't think you'd be very popular.

Oh, hey, and look, the keyboard doesn't have a 10-key numerical pad! That's the last straw ... it's useless now!
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-07-2004, 03:11 PM:
 
I could definately see them selling a Michael Eisner Computer that looks like an ass.

Mark
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-07-2004, 04:50 PM:
 

quote: Brian Michael Weidemann

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I gather when kids grow up and leave for college, the computer they take with them is not a new, top-of-the-line, store-bought PC

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I dunno...we had four of our staff graduate this year, and they're all heading off to college with new computers. At least one of them bought a new laptop with her own savings, and a couple of the others were graduation presents.
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 08-08-2004, 03:58 AM:
 
Oh, bah ... back in MY day, our hand-me-down computers were good enough for us and we gosh darn liked it that way! Them and them newfangled bought-with-your-own-savings computers ... who needs 'em?

But seriously, more power to 'em. That's cool. I never had the opportunity. In fact, I'm still making the most out of my 533mHz PC that I bought for $300 (secondhand and rebuilt) about three years ago. It does everything I need it to, and I'm recording my sixth album on it, just like the last three. It seems the only thing you need the latest computer for is the latest GAME! I never got beyond the classic Sierra 3D Animated Adventure, so I'm set.
 

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Posted by Robert L. Fischer (Member # 2424) on 08-09-2004, 04:34 AM:
 
Most of my younger relatives barely even know who Mickey Mouse is, if at all. Disney should learn to put their marketing prowess in the right areas.
 

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