Okay, so we're slipping in our old age-- so shoot us. Faithful viewer Steve Pissocra lays the verbal smackdown for the egregious way in which we left out a key player in yesterday's bit about PC manufacturers ditching their ill-conceived attempts to cash in on the iMac stylewagon. As it turns out, not only did Dell quietly drop the WebPC from its pricelist, but Compaq also aborted its "stylish" Presario 3500. A CNET article has more details on this latest proof that the "color craze" is "fading." (We'd clarify that slightly: the "color craze" is indeed "fading"-- among PC manufacturers who do it poorly.)

Compaq's admission of failure is a little different from Dell's though. Dell's WebPC was very much an attempt to capture the iMac's target audience: people who want an inexpensive and easy-to-use personal computer that will get them on the Internet and will do it in style-- not to mention a choice of colors. Compaq's Presario 3500, on the other hand, was aimed more at the style-conscious power user willing to pay more for a sleek design and a "magnetic blue" color scheme. In that sense, we'd consider its audience more like that of the Power Mac G4 than that of the iMac-- especially given the 3500's sticker price of $1999. Still, a failure's a failure, and it just goes to show what happens when industrial design is treated as an afterthought instead of an inseparable factor in the overall birth of a computer.

Incidentally, it may not happen for you, but when we loaded up the CNET article, right next to the picture of the "stylish" 3500 that's been cast aside as a failed fashion experiment, there was a happy little button ad for the Apple Store touting the Power Mac G4. We just thought that was a nice little moment; Compaq's attempt at a sleek, cool-looking computer goes down in flames while Apple's triumph of industrial design is being actively advertised right next to the obituary. Sometimes everything just clicks into place, you know?