Is it "la COMPUTER" or "le COMPUTER" in FRENCH?

A language instructor was explaining to her class that in  French, nouns -
unlike their English counterparts, are  grammatically designated as
masculine or  feminine.

"House", in French, is feminine - "la maison".
"Pencil", in French,  is masculine - "le crayon".

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?"  The  teacher did not
know, and the word wasn't in her (older)  French dictionary.  So for fun
she split the class  into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked
them to decide whether "computer" should  be a masculine or feminine  noun.
Both groups were required to give four reasons for  their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computers should definitely be of  the
feminine gender ("la computer"), because:

    1.  No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
    2.  The native language they use to communicate with other
        computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
    3.  Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory
        for possible later retrieval;  and
    4.  As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find  yourself
        spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers
should be masculine ("le computer"), because:

    1.  In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on;
    2.  They have a lot of data but they are still clueless;
    3.  They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
        time they ARE the problem;  and
    4.  As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you'd
        waited a little longer, you could have  gotten a better model.