Now that it’s spent some time trying to navigate the gap between churning out PC accessories and actual, honest-to-goodness gaming computers, the folks at Razer have seen fit to look for some experts for guidance. To that end, Razer announced earlier today that it has appointed entrepreneur and former VoodooPC founder Rahul Sood to serve as advisor to the company’s board of directors.
While Sood’s recent turns as GM of Microsoft’s Bing Fund angel fund/incubator and as head of Microsoft’s new global startups group have a strictly entrepreneurial bent, he’s no stranger to the sorts of issues that Razer (and CEO Min-Liang Tan) are facing. If anything, he seems like a natural fit for the role given his own experience crafting a business out of game-centric hardware — his first venture, VoodooPC, operated as a high-end gaming PC boutique of sorts before being acquired by HP in mid-2006.
His recent endeavors have taken him away from his roots as a champion of PC gaming performance, but Sood still seems to look at the PC gaming space with some degree of fondness. In a statement released by Razer earlier today, Sood noted that he saw the company as “the spiritual successor to [his] previous work at VoodooPC,” a sentiment he first expressed publicly after spending some time with Razer’s pricey Blade gaming laptop last year.
Frankly, Razer could use a bit of guidance. After carving out a name for itself as a proprietor of popular gaming mice and keyboards, it’s relatively newfound zeal for peculiar computers took some by surprise. While the Blade gaming laptop soon gained a rabid following for its no-compromise approach to gaming portables, the company is now looking to make another splash with its Razer Edge gaming tablet. Tablets and high-end gaming are two things that have arguably never gone well together, and Sood’s experience bringing these sorts of enthusiast devices to market could be a big boon for Razer.