THE PERSONALISED PERSONAL PC

LAPTOP PCs: He aims to achieve the same feat as Dell –or do even better. Sales of laptop PCs will boom in the coming years. And prices are falling on a daily basis. To Lasse Frost the future lies in personally designed and customized laptops which are better, cheaper and sold via the net.

In 1998, around 85,000 laptop PCs were sold in Denmark at an average price of DKK 12,000 (approx. EUR 1,700 or USD 2,000). In 2005, the figure was 527,000 units at half the previous average price. And prices on internals – the hardware –are currently dropping by more than 10% per month. So trend and price in combination, backed by performance and power, are the ingredients of a pure-bred Danish IT success called Zepto.

Zepto – the notebook company – is rapidly eating its way into this colossal market. The founder of the company, 38-year old Lasse Frost, who had millions in his pocket from the previous sale of another IT company, saw the opportunities of the internet as well as where trends and prices were heading.

Demise of desktop PCs
“Desktop PCs are simply on their way out,” says Lasse Frost, who started the company in 2002 and since then has seen growth rates of up to 125% annually. “In 2007 it is forecast that 85% of all PCs sold will be laptops. Technology is developing so fast that what required a lot of space in 2004 can easily fit into today’s slimline, lowweight laptops. With a five hour battery time which is constantly improving.” The situation is the same for all manufacturers of laptop PCs worldwide. But Lasse Frost and Zepto have added a number of other parameters which have helped boost the business.

“While the vast majority of other PC manufacturers develop a PC type which then is produced in thousands, we first produce a Zepto notebook when a customer has chosen and ordered one via the net. Because almost everything is possible. With the many and varied components of a laptop PC, there are more than 30,000 combination opportunities – which decide speed, RAM, graphics, performance and a lot more besides. It means that while our competitors’ PCs are held in stock at a fixed price, we produce on a day-to-day basis and can offer our customers a share of the price fall benefits – or upgrades –which happen almost every day on components.”

Timing is everything
Lasse Frost says that he is not an IT nerd or techno freak. He is a merchant who saw the opportunities when e-trading was in the making and later boomed.

“As in so many other cases, timing is everything. To specify and order your own entirely personal PC over the net was previously inconceivable. People simply didn’t know what it all meant. You had to go into a store and see the PC being demonstrated. Then lug it home and flail around with plugs and wires. Now most people know what it is about. And the laptop arrives by post a day or two after it was ordered.” When Lasse Frost talks about the personally specified notebook, he is not referring only to the internals. Zepto is the first company in Europe to offer customers their own top-covers according to customers’ own design. It can be a company logo, a photo of children or grandchildren, or something else.

Best value
“It has become a great success which especially young people have taken to,” says Lasse Frost, who adds that the top-covers are produced in Finland by the same supplier which makes covers for Nokia’s mobile phones.

 In 2005, Zepto produced 28,000 laptop PCs and expects to double that figure in 2006. In 2007, capacity will be at 120,000 annually, which the company is geared to.

 “If progress continues as currently, then in a few years we will be nipping at the heels of Dell in Scandinavia,” says Lasse Frost. “At the same time sales in Europe continue to grow. We are represented by partners and dealers in 14 countries, who all benefit from the same speed and flexibility because all our websites run on the same platform and are only differentiate by different language versions. Regardless of where in Europe the order comes from, it only takes six minutes to assemble the PC, a couple of hours to install programmes and perform quality control, and then off it goes by post. With the latest and most upto- date hardware, and above all at the best price – in other words the most you can get for your money.”

http://www.zepto.com