Wednesday, June 4, 2008

computex


Its that time of year...when thousands of IT buyers and tech journalists descend on Taipei for Computex - the island's annual tech fest.

This year's show is bigger than ever - with more exhibition space (at the newly opened Nankang exhibition venue) and buyers. Even so, many would-be exhibitors couldnt get venue space. Its quite spread out now, despite the frequent shuttle buses - and a bit of a nightmare for journalists to get to all the launch and company events, often held at very different venues across town.
The main focus this year is on WiMAX applications - wireless broadband internet - eco-friendly products and the big buzz is on small form or mini pc's ...which Intel has dubbed netbooks. (and come out with a new processor, the Atom for these smaller designs).

AsusTek created a sensation with its 7 inch Eee pc last year - at less than a kilo, and costing around $300. This year, its come out with 9 and 10 inch models, featuring more applications. The big thing they are stressing is a battery that can last up to 8 hours..though it does add weight to the very nicely designed notebook. Another big Taiwan and global brand, Acer, have brought out their own small form nine inch notebook - the Acer Aspire; weighing less than a kilo; it can be fitted with the Linpus Linux Lite operating system - so that users can almost instantaneously boot up and close down their notebooks. Company chairman, JT Wang, says the new sub-sized notebooks are likely to power a new growth in the pc industry. The lighter, smaller notebooks, he says could account for 20% of the total industry growth; and are appealing both for first time buyers, who want to get on the internet easily while they are travelling, and more sophisticated users who might buy it as a 2nd or 3rd computer.

Almost every notebook maker is now about to launch or in the process of launching these now small mobile devices. Which is good news for customers - as a more crowded market usually means lower prices.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Caro,

I'm from a british tv series about a guy who is travelling around the world and trading products as he goes. He's traded everything from coffee to wine to horses to jade to surfboards through africa, india, Kyrgyzstan and china. We're now we're looking for possible things we can buy in taiwan and sell in japan. Some ground breaking electronics might be good or anything else that is likely to be profitable and popular. I would love to speak to you or any other readers to hear any ideas you have.

Many thanks

Ed Kellie
Producer
Tigress Productions
edkellie@tigressproductions.co.uk
Tel. +44 20 7434 6733
Mob. +44 7961 302 509