VoodooPC Founder Joining Razer as Board of Directors Advisor

By Kevin Parrish
published

We smell a new VoodooPC-inspired Razer gaming desktop in the air. Sniff sniff.

Razer said on Thursday that VoodooPC founder Rahul Sood has joined the company as an advisor to the Razer board of directors. He will provide strategic counsel on all aspects of Razer's business, from global operations to sales, marketing and product development, to help evolve the Razer brand here in the States as well as abroad.

"I'm a fan of Rahul's work at VoodooPC, and it is our shared passion for PC gaming and technological innovation that makes his involvement with Razer so relevant and exciting," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer CEO. "In fact, it was his work at VoodooPC that inspired us to enter the systems business, and I believe his advice will be invaluable to us here at Razer."

Razer is best known for its PC gaming peripherals, but the company has recently taken larger steps into a hardware-based market with the introduction of its Razer Blade gaming laptop and the just launched Razer Edge tablets. Sood's involvement seems to indicate that Razer plans to continue on this path, producing top-notch solutions on both sides of the PC gaming spectrum.

Voodoo PC was originally founded by Sood back in 1991, and built a reputation of providing premier, specialized PCs for gamers. The company employed around 40 people before Hewlett-Packard swooped in and acquired the gaming rig builder for an undisclosed amount in 2006. He left the company in 2010, and by February 2013, HP had discontinued the sale of VoodooPC products and shut down the official website.

Sood is noted as being first to bring fanless PC technology, liquid cooling and active liquid chilling to the market. Since his departure from HP, he has gone on to become the general manager of interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. As of late he has been responsible for leading Microsoft's global startups team, which includes startup accelerators in China, India, Israel and Seattle, and the Bing Fund based in Bellevue, Washington.

Now Sood is playing advisor to Razer's board of directors. "Razer is an extraordinary company in an enviable position and I'm really excited to join the business at such an exciting time in its history," says Sood. "I have admired Razer for many years. Moreover, the executive leadership is both inspired and inspiring. I see Razer as the spiritual successor to our previous work at VoodooPC."

Razer gaming desktops, anyone? 

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Kevin Parrish
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • battlecrymoderngearsolid
    Unless it's something like the Falcon Northwest Tiki with a GTX Titan then not really...

    I just can't justify having someone build a PC that is heavily overpriced when you can do it yourself.

    They have to bring something new and unique if they want a shot.
    Reply
  • jcurry23
    Some people have to much money and want somebody else to build their gaming machine.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    sigh...
    "Gaming PC's" are like buying nike shoes... where the workers put in two layers of "comfort material" into the sole of the shoe, and got paid one and a half bags of rice, instead of one...

    What I'm trying to say is, I could build the same thing for cheaper, and without a stupid name that means nothing except in the fringe pc nostalgia world... which, by the way, does nothing to help me make top scores.....
    Reply
  • merikafyeah
    memadmaxsigh..."Gaming PC's" are like buying nike shoes... where the workers put in two layers of "comfort material" into the sole of the shoe, and got paid one and a half bags of rice, instead of one...What I'm trying to say is, I could build the same thing for cheaper, and without a stupid name that means nothing except in the fringe pc nostalgia world... which, by the way, does nothing to help me make top scores.....I challenge you to build something as small as the Falcon Northwest Tiki which performs as well or better for significantly less. Or match the Maingear Shift's vertical GPU liquid-cooling system. Raw performance per dollar is one thing, form-factor and style is another, and even if you could get both at the same time, there's also time to factor in. Time is money and not all people still have the time to be building their own custom PCs, which is where boutique PC shops come in.
    Reply
  • aracheb
    merikafyeahI challenge you to build something as small as the Falcon Northwest Tiki which performs as well or better for significantly less. Or match the Maingear Shift's vertical GPU liquid-cooling system. Raw performance per dollar is one thing, form-factor and style is another, and even if you could get both at the same time, there's also time to factor in. Time is money and not all people still have the time to be building their own custom PCs, which is where boutique PC shops come in.actually i could built something that perform wayyyyy best, for wayyyy less. Maybe not with the same style and form factor. But anyway i had always consider Falcon Northwest ot have the crappiest design ever.
    Reply
  • Fulgurant
    10443043 said:
    I challenge you to build something as small as the Falcon Northwest Tiki which performs as well or better for significantly less. Or match the Maingear Shift's vertical GPU liquid-cooling system. Raw performance per dollar is one thing, form-factor and style is another, and even if you could get both at the same time, there's also time to factor in. Time is money and not all people still have the time to be building their own custom PCs, which is where boutique PC shops come in.

    Yup. There's nothing wrong with paying for convenience. If you have the cash, then why not?

    Of course, there are "boutique" (for lack of a better term) PC builders that soak unsuspecting customers -- and those builders give builders in general a bad name.
    Reply
  • alidan
    please, let him going there mean he will try to force higher quality standards on their products.

    razer mice are great designs but with crap internals.
    Reply
  • Touko
    Who needs another overpriced desktop gaming pc with dorky design?

    Anybody and his grandmother can pick out parts and newegg and plug them together for a third of the price of these atrocities.
    Reply
  • Touko
    A gaming system built in a Silverstone SG08 easily beats the Falcon Northwest Tiki - with better cooling to boot.

    Added benefit: It'll never fall over, even if your kid or your dog slams into it full tilt.

    A tall, very narrow computer is just a dumb idea waiting to turn into an accident. As a rackmount it would work dandy, but I still dislike a bunch of tiny fans in anything.
    Reply