The break-up of a two-year-old joint computer mainboard venture set up by Taiwan's Gigabyte Technology Co (
"The break-up will not hurt Gigabyte too much," said William Fong (
Due to fierce competition from local companies, Gigabyte and Legend set up joint-venture factories in Huiyang and Dongguan with an initial investment of HK$250 million (US$32 million) in September 2001.
At that time, the companies planned to pool resources and procure more orders in partnership from global computer companies, which use mainboards or motherboards as the main circuit board on which computer chips and components are placed.
But the expected orders did not materialize, destroying the joint venture, an official at Gigabyte confirmed yesterday.
"In the past two years we tried to jointly procure orders in order to lower costs, but the results did not fulfill our expectations," Tony Liao (
Echoing analyst comments, Liao downplayed the impact of the news.
"There will be no effect on our relationship with Legend," he said.
But there may be more competition on the horizon for Gigabyte in China from its former partner.
Legend announced Wednesday that it plans to set up a new joint venture with China's Ramaxel Technology Ltd to make mainboards, memory modules and hard disks.
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