Every PC company tries to make it easier for customers to buy their stuff. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to it than streamlining the checkout process. The real problem is a nasty one, rooted deep in the corporate culture — and all seem powerless to fix it:

Their product lines are bloated to the extreme.

I’ve prepared this handy chart to illustrate the absurdity. This is a look at laptops only (it’s equally horrifying on the desktop side), as presented on each company’s website. Apple offers only three models. Dell weighs in with ten. And HP over-weighs in with 19. It hurt my fingers just to type them.

With Apple, you simply pick one of the three basic models, and then customize based on your needs. Why does this lesson in simplicity elude the monoliths of PC-dom? Because their companies are structured around separate groups that don’t communicate well with each other, each fighting for its own budget and its own survival.

I venture to say that PC customers would be a lot happier if their basic choices were simpler. (The model names are stupefying too, but let’s save that topic for a future post.) Once you have an obvious starting point, its vastly easier for a human being to commit.

Not only would customers be happier with fewer models, the computer companies would shave millions off their operating costs — when razor-thin margins are what’s gotten them into this mess in the first place. Streamlining their offerings would drastically cut spending on manufacturing and marketing.

By spewing models as they do, PC companies actually put more distance between themselves and their customers. They’d bond more deeply if they guided their customers down a well-lit path. The sad fact is, those battleships really are difficult to turn around.