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Rumor mill has HP closing Voodoo down, more likely its just further integrating Voodoo into its operations

A rumor is making the rounds today that HP could possibly be closing down boutique gaming PC maker Voodoo. It is easy to imagine with the weak economy hitting the PC and technology industry particularly hard, that a maker of uber-expensive PCs would be feeling increased pressure.

The rumor first came from Techgage who reports that it was told by an “insider close to the situation” that an email was being circulated among Voodoo employees that HP is shutting Voodoo down. Crave quotes HP spokeswoman Marlene Somsak saying, “We continually assess and rebalance the size of our work force relative to the business environment and market conditions.” Somsak told Crave that it would be incorrect to say HP was shutting Voodoo down.

It would be easy to imagine that HP is merely continuing on the next step that it started when it absorbed Voodoo totally into HP in July 2008. HP said when it fully absorbed Voodoo into its operations, “It is just the next step of integration into the business units that deliver Compaq Presario and [HP] Pavilion.”

One major possibility here is that HP is closing down the remaining Voodoo assembly lines in Canada. The Voodoo notebooks have always been made in Asia, but the gaming desktops were assembled in Canada. Closing the Canadian assembly processes down would allow HP to further integrate Voodoo into HP’s normal operations. Closing the Voodoo facilities would also allow HP some cost savings by cutting more Voodoo employees. Both the Voodoo Omen desktop and the HP Blackbird are currently built in Canada.

Neither HP nor Voodoo has made any official comments on the rumor at this time.

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