Pretty in pink

The Christmas season looks rosy at Xtreme Notebooks Inc., a notebook computer company based in Carson City.

It looks pink, in fact.

The maker of custom notebook computers added ChicBook a notebook painted pink with Hawaiian flowers and the customer's name to its line.

"We feel there's a huge market for notebooks for girls," says Steven Nichols, president.

The idea came to Nichols in the night, and when he checked to see how many people typed the search term "pink laptop" into Google, he was astonished to find that 200 to 300 people every day were yearning to think pink.

"We're really ramping up for Christmas," he says. Research shows that the pink computers are mostly given as gifts to wives and girlfriends.

Ultimately, Xtreme Notebooks wants to get ChicBook on retail shelves.

"If people see them, they'll want them," says Nichols. "But first, we need to get down the mass-production part."

Pink is only the latest incarnation of Xtreme Notebooks. The company already offers portables painted in many colors, with a company logo or even with family photos. The images are rendered as a decal and protected with a clear coat.

One customer, a Corvette owner, wanted his computer painted the same color as his car, picking a color from the company's Web site, xnbs.com.

Xtreme Notebooks works with an original-design maker, so its boxes a bit bigger than most notebooks can house components that are a bit faster, says Nichols. The end product weighs in at 8 pounds plus.

The laptop computer may be giving way to tablets.

"We sell as many tablet PCs as laptops," says Nichols. Tablet PCs offer wireless connectivity, digital writing, handwriting recognition and portability. That's handy for people who work in the field, or who fill out forms. The market includes real estate agents, insurance claims adjusters, inspectors at government agencies, doctors accessing electronic medical records, and designers, for whom inspiration may strike at any time.

"We've sold to employees at Pixar, who need massive video power in a mobile computer they can take anywhere," says Nichols.

But the real speed demons are gamers. Sometimes Nichols will spend an hour on the phone with a customer, helping the player get just the right cluster of components. The end product costs from $1,300 to $5,000, depending on speed and complexity.

That sort of hands-on customer service is what sets Xtreme apart from the big makers, such as Gateway and Dell, says Nichols. "We answer the phone. People get U.S. tech support in 24/7."

But the company is looking over its shoulder.

"Hewlett Packard just bought VoodooPC, and Dell bought Alienware," says Nichols. "Big companies are figuring there's money to be made from gaming. We hired a business coach to coach us on how to get there so we can keep up with them."

But Xtreme isn't interested in the broad market base of the big dogs. "We want a specific customer," says Nichols. Although it has three distributors in New York, California, and Canada the company does all marketing online. It pays search engines for clicks. But not for the generic term "laptop." Rather, it seeks specifics like "pink laptop" or "custom-built laptop."

Nichols started the company at his Carson City home in 2000, selling computers (built in California) on eBay. Funding came from partners. While founding partner Jeff Dudley has since moved away, Mark Marsella, chief technical officer and Dave Antonucci, chief operating officer, are all equal partners.

Each year Xtreme has seen steady growth, says Nichols. Gross sales were $500,000 in itse first year, then $1.2 million, $1.8 million, $2.5 million, $3.3 million, and hit $4 million last year.

But he worries about a slowdown due to shaky customer consumer confidence due to gas prices, the war in Iraq, and the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"People are holding tighter on their money," he says.

In future, the goal is to "Stay on top of our game; we always have to be on the bleeding edge. People know when they come to our Web site they'll find something no one else has."

Like the latest little thing a 7-inch ultra mobile private computer, small enough to carry in pocket or purse.