EMC Corp, the world's biggest maker of data-storage computers and programs, has started using Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) as its first supplier of finished equipment.
"This is the first time that EMC's gone to a company to do subassembly, final assembly and test for everything," Steven Fitz, Asia Pacific president of EMC, said in an interview yesterday in Hong Kong. "There's a lot more potential for them to do a lot more for us." Hon Hai is making data-storage equipment selling for US$5,000 that EMC is selling to small and medium-sized business clients.
The new product is helping EMC win market share from its closest competitors, which are Hewlett-Packard Co in hardware and Veritas Software Corp in programs, according to Gartner Inc.
EMC's cheapest computer two years ago cost US$350,000. EMC may use Hon Hai, Taiwan's biggest electronics company, to make new products that sell for less than US$5,000, Fitz said. EMC chose Hon Hai as a supplier in part because both companies count Dell Inc and Intel Corp as business partners, according to Fitz.
Hon Hai competes with Singapore-based Flextronics International Ltd, the world's largest maker of electronics for other companies, and second-ranked Solectron Corp of Milpitas, California.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained