white box

white box

A PC made from commonly available parts. White box marketing refers to the many small companies that assemble and sell Windows PCs (and occasionally Linux PCs) under their own brand name. The "white" refers to the packing carton of the computer case, which has often been white, but can be any color. More importantly, the carton and the case itself are devoid of the original manufacturer's logos so that resellers can add their own.

A Declining White Box Market
Due to ever increasing laptop computer sales, the white box market, which is primarily desktop computers, is in decline. The white box companies take advantage of surplus motherboards, disks and other parts they are able to mix and match quite easily for desktop computers. However, parts for laptop computers are not as interchangeable, and the "white book" market (white box laptops) has never been as easy to support for the small white box vendor. It is expected that both the white box and white book markets will continue to weaken. See OEM. See also white box testing.