When the first IBM PC appeared, it sold for $3,005 with a single floppy disk drive and monochrome monitor, according to the 1981 press release(Opens in a new window). Back then, the typical budget of people jumping on the desktop computing bandwagon ranged from $2,500 to $3,500 and stayed that way for over a decade. To make things more interesting, during the 20 years that followed, a user would upgrade to a completely new machine every 12 to 18 months.

The business model changed when Compaq introduced a sub-$1,000 machine. Combined with explosive Internet growth and lesser power needs, the metrics all changed. People may now go five years without swapping out their cheap $1,500 machine but may at the same time purchase a new smartphone every year and a new tablet every other.

Whatever the case, there is still a price point between $2,500 and $3,500 that manufacturers have failed to exploit. It’s as if it never existed. This is kind of like General Motors ignoring the market for Cadillacs and instead going forward with new models of Saturns.

But to get people back on board with a $2,500 system, we need some actual marketing—a skill that has long been lost as manufacturers focus their brainpower on logistics and inventory control. This is a great way to eke out a few more pennies while discounting the thousands of dollars lost in the channel.

Just imagine the type of machine that could be built for $2,500, not to mention $3,500; it’s the exact machine that power users cobble together themselves. The new DisplayPort I/O makes it even easier and cheaper to achieve.

The box would be an obvious multi-core unit with 4TB of hard disk, 64 to 128GB of main memory, plus one (or two) R/W Blu-ray drives and one (or two) R/W DVD drives. There should be dual-networking cards and perhaps an inherent Wi-Fi capability. Using a DisplayPort I/O, this machine will drive three 20- to 27-inch matched monitors.

Though this three-monitor power user configuration is quite common in the real world, I have never seen it sold as such. Dell, HP, or Lenovo will never advertise this configuration because they’ll tell you that people want laptops and tablets and that will be the end of it.

Instead, they fret over “just-in-time” inventory control and wonder if they should compete with the Apple iPhone while leaving all that money on the table.

And you wonder why the PC scene is in the doldrums.