High-End PC Maker Buys Rival / Chesterfield-Based Velocity Micro Acquires Overdrive PC to Help Sales in Niche Market
By JEFFREY KELLEY
Chesterfield County-based high-end computer maker Velocity Micro Inc. has acquired Overdrive PC, a small manufacturer of top-end PCs from Georgia.
Terms were not disclosed. The deal gives the local company access to an Overdrive technology called HyperClocking, which makes PCs run at significantly higher speeds.
Such computers are needed for both companies’ target markets: PC enthusiasts, avid gamers and professional users such as graphic designers or video editors who need something more than a standard desktop.
Velocity’s purchase comes at a time when mainstream computer makers are leaping in to the so-called boutique PC market.
Dell Inc. purchased Velocity competitor Alienware last year. And in October, Hewlett-Packard picked up VooDooPC, another Velocity rival. Those acquisitions allow the niche players to use volume discounts from their parent companies, while pushing Dell and H-P into the enthusiast space.
“We got the two big ones [Dell and H-P] in our space. I can’t just sit here and wait for them to do whatever they want,” said Randy Copeland, Velocity’s president and CEO.
He said Dell and H-P bought popular brands, but “we went out and bought the best technology in the industry.”
Overdrive, based near Atlanta in Norcross, Ga., will relocate its operations to Velocity’s corporate headquarters in at 7510 Whitepine Road in Chesterfield. The companies said they will maintain individual brand names.
Gordon Mah Ung, senior editor at Maximum PC magazine, said Velocity’s purchase is surprising but smart. “It gets the company a very good performance brand without paying an arm and a leg for it.”
Overdrive is a small shop compared with Alienware and VooDoo. “Overdrive PC is also well-respected and very technically proficient in making very fast PCs,” he said.
Still, Ung said, he believes Velocity felt pressure from Dell and H-P to make sure its PCs kept their reputation for being fast.
Strategically, Velocity Micro will now be better equipped to lure in demanding consumers and to compete against Alienware or VooDoo, Sal Cangeloso, a writer at Geek.com, wrote in an e-mail.
Velocity’s Copeland said he wasn’t concerned about the competition, and the purchase was meant to boost his brand as well as Overdrives. Velocity also has cleared enough financial hurdles and is becoming big enough to garner the same economies of scale as his larger rivals, he said.
“I don’t think they have significant price advantages over us anymore,” Copeland said. “Because we’re all selling high-end technology [the] parts we’re buying are the most elusive or hard to get parts out there – there’s just no sales or discounts on them, I don’t care who you are.”
Contact staff writer Jeffrey Kelley at jkelly@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6348.
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