back to article Fujitsu assigns team of women to design PC for women

Fujitsu Japan has announced a range of PCs “planned and developed primarily under the direction of female employees” and “aimed at female users”. The 'Floral Kiss' range of computers is an extension of the LifeBook line and will go on sale in Japan next Friday. Fujitsu says the Floral Kiss was created because women make …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    uhhhhhhh is it just me or does it just look like a standard laptop in purple with a logo on the top...

    What exactly did they engineer outside a color scheme, and wallpaper?

    Does it get hot enough to toast the bread for the ham sammich the women should be making instead of playing with the PC?

    1. LaeMing
      WTF?

      More to the point:

      What exactly COULD one engineer outside a color scheme, and wallpaper?

      A computer is a computer is a computer. From a use-aspect, it certainly doesn't care whether the user's genitals are innie or outie.

      Mice options in S-M-L-XL is all I can think of (and you can already get those), unless they are going to start making them with LCDs and webcams that support R-G-B1-B2 for the small portion of the (exclusively) female population that are quad-chromatic.

      1. Thorne

        The female laptop only runs ebay and facebook

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          One of my colleagues once caused utter despair and confusion in our company, not just with the ladies, when he blocked eBay and Facebook etc. at the firewall once. It just destroyed lunchtime. People were having to speak to each other and stuff.

      2. N13L5
        FAIL

        Fujitsu certainly needs any change for its plastic bomber crapbooks it can get

        I mean, their business tech is good and their scope of delivery is also good.

        But God, do they ever sport a sorry look.

        Now this still looks like a plastic bomber. I would have expected a little more from the girls Fujitsu hired there...

        I am guessing they were kept within extremely tight constraints, to make sure this action wouldn't show up as anything more than a rounding error on the budget.

        Sad, Fujitsu... you could be a contender...

      3. N13L5
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: What exactly COULD one engineer outside a color scheme, and wallpaper?

        Lots.

        Apparently, your mind is as closed as a bank branch on Sunday.

    2. Crisp

      This whole cunning plan has one fatal flaw

      It requires women to know what they actually want.

      1. Anonymous Coward 15

        Re: This whole cunning plan has one fatal flaw

        A "zig-ah-zig-ah", whatever that is, if the song is to be believed.

    3. GT66

      They "engineered" pretty. Can't you see that? A "man" could never conceive of such a thing as a purple case with an easy open latch. That is, after all, why males are inferior.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Purple isn't just for the ladies.

        Google the SGI Tezro.

    4. kb
      Happy

      There is one place..

      While I agree that "girl themed" laptops are just dumb, there is ONE place where "built for girls" does make a difference and that is one place most would never think...cars, more specifically car seats. A woman's hips and lower back and a man's are simply different and what will feel really comfortable to a woman who has to drive a long distance and what will feel good to a man are different thanks to the differences in hips. men tend to like a more solid straight seat while women usually prefer a more "sunk in" kind of seat that cradles the hips better.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      One thing I am curious about is

      "Just where do you stick the tampon?"

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Apple of course...

      So why isn't the laptop an Apple...? Easy to use, designed for non-Techies, just works.

      AC for obvious reasons....

  2. Esskay
    Happy

    "floral Kiss"

    I gave my girlfriend one of those on her birthday...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This PC also uses less power than one designed by a male. The downside is that every month for 3 to 14 days it is very temperamental and you don't dare ask it to do anything.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Every month?

      The display sample is running Windows.

      So it is not just a female oriented computer it is a "Children, open the windows... Children close the windows" one.

      This means that you don't really dare ask it to do anything for a few years (at least) - until its CPU stops getting regularly hot for no specific reason. That is also evident from the actual design - it looks a bit old in the tooth (to say the least).

  4. WatAWorld
    Paris Hilton

    While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

    Mice should be sized to the hand. Smaller mice for smaller hands, larger mice for larger hands. That is something everyone should care about.

    Same with keyboards.

    But while this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do, and few men do.

    It isn't as if Fujitsu was trying to make laptops in Barbie pink.

    I see the day when Dell will make 3 models of laptop for men (black, brown and blackish brown) and 157 models for women in 16 sizes each of the petite, junior petite, misses, etc. size ranges.

    It will be like clothing and shoe stores.

    1. JohnG

      Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

      Mice in different sizes are already available. Keyboards and integral pointing devices on notebooks are typically too small for comfort, being constrained by the need to fit within the dimensions of the case, which is in turn set by the screen size. I do own a "manly sized" notebook but most people consider these to be too big. So, I suggest that notebooks are already sized for the fairer sex, if not for children.

    2. Robert E A Harvey
      Stop

      Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

      hey! I'm a very masculine man, and I have a dell in Bright (alfa romeo like) red!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

        I'm not exactly the pale artistic type either but you know what, it looks pretty good in purple. Just I probably won't be needing the sparklies, thanks. If they did an intense turquoise shade as well maybe that would be nice too.

        Maybe something not too far from the colour options on the Nokia N9, which is made from a milled block of self-coloured resin as far as I can remember.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

      They need to be subtle about it... if they get a few models to prance about with it and get a write up in cosmo it will probably sell well, but if they get the marketing wrong and do the built just for you, buy it.. then it wont sell.

      You have to be crafty...

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

        Computers for ladies cannot have mice!

        Hamsters, maybe, or rabbits...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

          For the most part, I assume that women want what men want- a laptop that behaves, doesn't make too much noise, isn't too heavy. The brightest women in my peer group are either in biomedical research, or else are in finance and so travel a lot, and work at all hours of the week (so have a small laptop like a Thinkpad). They can afford to buy whatever machine they want, but I suspect it was supplied by their firm's IT department.

          I see a lot of women with brightly printed bags... men are more likely to have a plain-coloured man-bag, often plain canvas, leather or nylon, all blacks or tans. So if a woman has gone to effort of choosing a bag that is colourful, it is not unreasonable to assume she might also like a laptop that isn't just black or silver. The female surgeon's example, a pink scalpel, isn't a fair comparison because it doesn't leave your place of work. Handbags and laptops do.

          Kath Kidson seems to have done very well by selling things decorated with her prints. I get the impression that there are a lot of relatively young working women out there who don't feel it is a betrayal of some feminist ideal to don a floral apron and bake a cake from time to time.

        2. GT66

          Re: While this lady surgeon doesn't wear make-up or jewelry or other adornments, most women do

          The Lady Bunny Foo-Foo Desktop Control Device - in purple, with gold highlights, and glitter and built-in perfume dispenser.

  5. Lucky2BHere

    Another massively misdirected effort

    This. Will. Not. Do. It!

    Many attempts, exactly like this. All dismal failures. Women want nearly the same things in their products men want. Colors and some ornamentation are attractive - to just a few female buyers. But what they want the most is ease of use, no nasty cords, no extra "features" for the sake of extra features. Just check the stats on Apple notebooks and see how the M-F buyer is split.

    Just focus on how they USE their technology. What their concerns are day to day. Make 'em look attractive, too. But not to teen girls. Elegant, sophisticated, accomplished adults.

  6. jake Silver badge

    The Wife, reading over my shoulder reports:

    1) That is completely ridiculous.

    2) A "Floral Kiss" is a 50/50 mix of Ironstone Vineyards' "Obsession Symphony" and "California Champagne" (the "champagne" is only available for sale at the tasting room, but well worth the visit if you're in Calaveras County, California's "unknown" wine county ... worth a detour if you're visiting Yosemite, too. It's an inexpensive dry, white sparkling wine, easily the equal of any French variation costing ten or even thirty times as much that I've tasted from Champagne itself. Impressive.).

  7. Turtle

    "Feminine Pink "?

    As opposed to "Masculine Pink" or "Ladyboy Pink"?

    1. Peter Storm

      Re: "Feminine Pink "?

      And "Luxury Brown" as opposed to "Bottom of the Barrel Brown" or "Shit-heap Brown"?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Pink or brown?

        Hmm.

    2. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: "Feminine Pink "?

      >Masculine Pink

      It's cultural thing. Around a hundred years ago, pink was considered very masculine in England, it being a vibrant, strong colour. Blue was considered more demure, and thus suitable for their ideal of womanhood.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Feminine Pink "?

      Or "strapon puce". Oh, I''m sorry. :P

    4. GT66

      Re: "Feminine Pink "?

      Crips blue, Bloods red, or Dandies pink?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Floral Kiss

    Obviously I'm not as sophisticated as the rest of El Reg's readership. The phrase "floral kiss" immediately had me sniggering up my sleeve, as it sounds like something taken from the Viz Profanisaurus, where it would doubtless be a euphemism for farting in someone's face.

  9. Dana W
    FAIL

    no.......

    It's "Della" all over again..........

  10. Suricou Raven

    What was that expression?

    "Pink it and shrink it," if I recall correctly.

    1. Wize

      Re: What was that expression?

      Got to vjazzle it too (or would that be iJazzle). Can't forget the sparky bits round the power button.

  11. Neoc

    ....

    I just had a Homer-Simpson-Designing-Car moment

  12. WorkingFromHome

    Elegant design?

    Pretty much all the women I know seem to say the Macbook Air/Ultrabook style designs are the most elegant and desireable - usually followed with a comment about "not paying that much for a computer"

    Seems to me that women just want the same things men do out of a computer - either a cheap, basic workhorse or a slick fansionable "premium" item depending on the cash available at the time.

    I just can't can't see "computers for women" being a good selling point...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Elegant design?

      According to my wife: real women only use Mac OS :)

      1. jake Silver badge

        @MobiFan (was:Re: Elegant design?)

        According to my wife, real woman use whatever computer+OS+code is needed to do the job at hand.

    2. No, I will not fix your computer

      Re: Elegant design?

      When my girlfriend was looking for a laptop she settled on an 11" MBA, as her eeepc wasn't big enough and my spare laptop was too big to lug around, it fits in her handbag (unlike the 13"), has a great battery life, has all the apps that her 27" iMac has (which of course means she didn't have to buy them all again, just download again using her appleid), and by a strange quirk of fate because it came with Lion installed she was given a free upgrade to Mountain Lion, as this upgrade was then tied to her AppleID she could download and upgrade her iMac to ML for no extra cost (that with student discount and £70 iTunes credit, made it a good deal).

      Short of the ability to fit it into her handbag and not take up all the space (or for that matter my briefcase, it's much better than my Dell 420) there's no difference between men and women.

  13. David 45

    Colour

    Hmmm. Shocking pink with a few flowers would be nice - oh and somewhere to hang a handbag.

  14. Kubla Cant

    CEO Computer

    A few years ago, some colleagues and I speculated on why nobody had designed computers for CEOs and the like. I was thinking of burr walnut cases and maybe brass keys (design has moved on a bit since then, but you can imagine the modern equivalent).

    On seeing how our CEO actually used his computer, it became clear that the appropriate installation was actually one of the cardboard dummy computers that furniture shops use to make desks look more lifelike.

    1. Magnus_Pym
      Happy

      Re: CEO Computer

      Walnut, leather, brass with a lead crystal screen and some software that is rumoured to improve your golf handicap. I think you have a winner.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CEO Computer

      Many years ago, I worked for a subsidiary of a very large US bank. Late one Friday afternoon, I was sent to assist VP Finance: his favourite accountant had just departed for a jolly^H^H^H^H^H business trip to Hong Kong and Singapore, leaving that month's financial reports in a spreadsheet on a floppy disk. VP Finance could not open the file, despite having the most expensive and powerful PC in the company. The reason: no operating system had ever been installed on VP Finance's PC. In over a year, he had never switched his PC on - it was on his desk for purely decorative purposes. His secretaries normally handled all his email and provided printouts of anything he needed to read.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @AC:08:03 (was: Re: CEO Computer)

        See mine from a couple years ago:

        http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/894833

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Unused overpowered, much-used underpowered kit

          Why a field-swap? Really should've swapped that before handing the kit out to them. Really big screen and expensive-branded keyboard (and maybe a keyboard overlay for some really expensive software package, possibly without owning the package at all) with a big and impressive (but mostly empty) case juuust visible under the bigwig's desk, and all the processing power in a dinky older case tucked invisibly away at the secretary's.

          The local IT department isn't just there to "provide kit", that's what the supplier does. What the local IT bods should much more concentrate on is making the technology work for the local users. And if that includes not so much working around, but catering for social needs like this, well, I think by and large us techs have been dropping the ball a bit.

          Of course, we thought we were hired for our technical skills, not for our nonexistent social skills, but at the rough end, that's far from true. This doesn't mean giving in to every whim, but it does mean matching user needs, including non-technical ones, to what the technology can deliver. And if it's form, not function they want, well, let's give the extra functional power to someone else. Just have to understand what they're really after, what they need, and give'em that.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Unused overpowered, much-used underpowered kit

            Our IT department spends an inordinate amount of their valuable time acquiring and then working on the business owner's latest electronic gadgets. He's a good guy, quite intelligent and not at all the bumbling CEO, but he has one fatal character flaw: he believes the advertising. He's an early adopter.

            He purchased a multiple SIM smartphone in the early 2000's so he could get his email when he was in Europe (we're a US company). The IT department was left to explain to him why, though it was theoretically possible, in practice, the data just wasn't going to flow reliably from our mail server through the mobile data systems of all the Euro cell carriers, who were still using CDPD.

            I believe the current project has something to do with all his iGadgets and why they don't all sync up correctly at home and at work...

            1. Dave 126 Silver badge

              Re: Unused overpowered, much-used underpowered kit

              Sorry, I now have the image of Matt Berry playing the Boss in the I.T Crowd, not being able to open his laptop.

              "I would be beholden to you"

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: CEO Computer

        Shocking, but actually quite admirable in a way. He did at least write on paper occasionally and use a phone, one would hope?

    3. Anonymous Coward 15

      Re: CEO Computer

      Don't they even need to play Solitaire?

    4. DJV Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: CEO Computer

      This is good enough for a CEO's use.

  15. tojb
    Big Brother

    Petticoat 5

    Obligatory link to the petticoat 5, the first computer by and for women:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/programmes/computers/gallery1.shtml

    Can't find a youtube link.... perhaps the vid was taken down due to a highly ironic accusation of sexism?

    1. frank ly

      Re: Petticoat 5 - Got it!

      BBC TV: Look Around You - Series 2 - Episode 5 - 'Computers'. Yes, it's funny as was the entire series.

      "At the moment, there's only one program available for it, and that's a lipstick colour chart."

      I have all the episodes on my media library. Well worth obtaining.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Choices...

    "Three colours – Elegant White, Feminine Pink and Luxury Brown – are offered"

    ...so, the age-old dilemma remains - pink or brown?

    1. Piro Silver badge

      Re: Choices...

      For the discerning user, you could buy both and use them in rotation.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Choices...

        Buy, this isn't the middle ages, laddie! :P

  17. Old Man - Grey Fleece
    Go

    The "Pink Market"

    Bought a pink laptop for my daughter when she was at school - they have survived surprisngly well. Does my daughter still choose pink? Only to upset the lads.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is silly, yet not.

    As already mentioned, there's extra doubleplus masculine branded versions of such things too, and they are usually limited to an extra wallpaper, theme, and preinstalled app in addition to the unusual paint on the outside. You basically just pay more for a slightly more exclusive casing. It's not mainstream yet cheaper than having the case paintbrushed individually.

    The marketese doesn't fool around either: It entirely emphasises just how wonderfully "elegant" and "sophisticated" this change of colour is. And the trim, oh the trim, it's golden. It reminded me of adverts for curtains and clothing and such. And let's not forget that matching the handbag is very, very important to some, usually females but by no means never for males, though there it's more usually matching a car brand, likely one they'll never afford. Or their fav soccer team's colours. So there's a definite niche market for this kind of thing.

    And there's not even anything wrong with it, except that the "it's for women" is overbroad --plenty women aren't that obsessed with a matched-set wardrobe down to mobiles and the much more expensive laptop--, but that too isn't unusual. It would be more accurate to say it's for the fasion concious, in the same way that a tacky gem-encrusted nokia is aimed squarely at the gilded pikey set.

    Oh, nokia had phones with replaceable fronts, and that sparked a whole market of all sorts of replacement fronts. iphones and other smartphones get stuck in aftermarket sleeves with silly designs (I actually liked the microcassette one). And yeah, there are men who like their mobile matched to their jacket, too. But a whole laptop with a fixed colour? That's a smaller market.

    Anybody likely reading here --male or female-- knows that it's all about the innards and the colour of the box is nearly entirely irrelevant. So desktop boxes have for the longest time had an ugly sand colour, or usually they're black these days. Laptops aren't much better. Recall what a splash apple made when they suddenly sold computers with bright colours? And, people, that did work pretty well for them, for a while.

    We can (and should, as commentards) make light of it, but that doesn't mean there isn't a niche for this kind of thing. The major problem though is that if you get the marketing wrong, you start out with shutting out half the buyers by emphasising it's not for them, and then you risk chasing the rest away because it marks them as susceptible to obviously shallow marketeering. Then again, "not for girls" does get tried too.

    As for smaller keyboards and mice, well, there's various sized mice on the market these days, in fact apart from extra "gamer" features, that's the only thing of note that varies. A simple three button mouse without scrollwheel is not even available (so mine's still of the ball variety). And asian market laptops are available in sizes that're smaller than you can get in europe or north america. Swap that all-japanese BIOS for something people elsewhere can read and you may well have a winner already. In fact, the netbook and ultrabook may have both under- and overshot a viable market, actually. Pick a price point between the two, there you go.

    Probably shouldn't even try and just paint the thing purple, much less pink. Instead ask well-known fashion designers what colours and designs are closest to "universal" to accessorise with. For it's not really an accessory, can't just swap it out with all that personal info on it and everything. I think that's really the only major problem with the marketing of this thing.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: It is silly, yet not.

      That's a very good point- there are plenty of laptops out there with what might be called 'overly masculine' styling... being it some Alienware machine, an Asus with Ferrari branding or a ruggedised laptop (though the latter is at least functional, and female geologists / soldiers etc will appreciate just as much as the boys).

      It isn't hard to find a PC gaming case that no person with taste (including many many women) would consider for a moment. But then, it depends on whether the individual is installing it in their front room or in their den.

  19. Anonymous Coward 15

    Offer colour choices, that's fine

    But this does sound a bit sexist. I'm a bloke and I don't need my tech to have Porsche or Ferrari stickers on it.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: Offer colour choices, that's fine

      It is sexist but I think not in the sense everybody understands.

      This bling-ware is actually aimed at men who would then force their women to carry that stuff around as a symbol of the men's prowess in the computing(?) department.

    2. Rushyo
      Trollface

      Re: Offer colour choices, that's fine

      That doesn't mean there aren't laptops on the market with them:

      http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/acer-ferrari-one-review-49303769/

      Ultimately there is a market for these in both genders, so the fact that they exist is hardly insulting.

      Of course when either gender wants to buy something purely based on form over function they tend to get iProducts anyway... </troll>

  20. Esskay
    Coat

    All of its drivers crash constantly...

    But you should see it multitask!

  21. Silverburn
    Thumb Down

    Sexual Discrimination

    Is it just me, or this sexual discrimination?

    If I - as a guy - applied for a position on the team, would I be rejected because I wasn't female?

    Could you imagine the outrage if it was the other way round?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sexual Discrimination

      I don't know... if a team had a brief to make a gaming laptop that appealed to 16-30 year old males, maybe a woman who wanted to join it might be asked what she could contribute. If she could offer some valuable insights or expertise, one would hope she would be allowed to join.

  22. Nev
    FAIL

    How come Range Rover...

    ...Managed to involve a woman in the styling process for the Evoque, and come up with something quite good, whilst this is all Fujitsu could achieve?

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      Re: How come Range Rover...

      Evoque? good? It's a transit van for tarts, a Wag Wagon.

      Shudder

  23. GT66

    pfft... Where's the glitter? Engineering fail.

  24. Esskay
    Alert

    Didn't Volvo try this on a few years ago?

    And Fiat? If I recall, every "designed by females, for females" publicity stunt invariably comes off as a patronising, money grabbing demonstration of just how out-of-touch the company in question is.

  25. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    I just thought they could take any old machine, and stick hello kitty stickers and glitter all over it. *shrug*

  26. Old Handle

    Although the name is fairly horrible (perhaps due to translation?), the product itself isn't nearly is ghastly as I expected. Perhaps they really did consult some actual women instead of just assuming they want everything electric pick.

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