Technology companies are hoping that the merging of mobile phone, home entertainment and computer functions will create a new wave of consumer buying as the industry slowly emerges from a three-year downturn, according to officials from two global giants.
"The future is convergence -- all computers will communicate and all communication devices will compute," said Jason Chen (陳俊聖), a vice president at Intel Corp, during a keynote speech on the first day of Asia's largest computer trade show, Computex Taipei.
"Communications devices that compute will change usage models and create new products," Chen said.
The merging of devices is already happening, Chen said, as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are replaced by more powerful smart phones that perform the functions of both devices.
Taiwan's traditional manufacturers of computer components are adapting to the changing technology. Originally a maker of motherboards, Shuttle Inc (
In the near future, experts predict, the average user will be able to use a handheld computer to do the things only a bulky desktop computer can do now.
To demonstrate that point, Chen played a three-dimensional computer game with a colleague using a laptop, and then a handheld computer, via a wireless Internet connection.
The ability to communicate with other computers and devices via a wireless broadband connection is leading the change, according to Texas Instruments CEO Thomas Engibous: "The TV was a TV with nothing connected to it but the signal coming in -- period. An audio system in the living room was just an audio system, standalone, going to some speakers. They're becoming connected now," he told reporters at a press conference yesterday.
"It's the biggest, most exciting thing," Engibous said.
Once users can send and receive e-mail on their cell phones, they will consider buying new third generation phones that already offer more than talk functions, Engibous said. After e-mail, users will want to download and watch video, listen to music and radio, and browse the Internet. In fact, video-conferencing in real time using a cell phone is already possible in Japan, Engibous said.
There is no shortage of new camera phones at Computex this year. One example from Mitac International Corp (
Taiwan is at the center of the change to connected devices. "As I can recall, it used to be Computex was a PC show and nothing else, and today we only walked through it very briefly this morning and you could tell right away ? that it was a communications show," Engibous said.
"That's a reflection of the economy and the electronics industry in general, it's becoming more of a communications world than just a computer world," Engibous said.
Taiwan is also moving beyond being the manufacturing base for the computer industry. "Taiwan's role in the past was in manufacturing," said Kelly Wu (
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”