One of the nation's top personal computer vendors appeared to be less confident that Computex Taipei 2005 -- one of the top three information technology (IT) exhibitions in the world -- will be able to attract buyers this year, citing a lack of killer applications and shrinking IT spending driven by the slow global economy.
"We sense a decline in Computex's attraction for international buyers this year, due to the absence of new killer applications," Acer Inc's chairman Wang Jen-tang (
Wang also attributed the waning appeal of the exhibition to marginal growth in IT spending, because of the slow global economy.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Acer will maintain its presence at the trade show this year, Wang said, adding that the company, as the world's fifth-biggest PC vendor, no longer depends on the exhibition to expand overseas business, and instead uses its close ties with foreign distributors in markets worldwide.
Computex -- with 1,288 companies participating this year, down from 1,347 last year -- will run from Tuesday through June 4 at the Taipei World Trade Center's three exhibition halls, as well as the Taipei International Convention Center.
The trade show is expected to attract 27,500 foreign buyers this year, compared to 26,222 visitors a year ago.
Acer yesterday rolled out the latest notebook in its Ferrari series, the Ferrari 4000, in alliance with renowned Italian automaker Scuderia Ferrari. Acer hopes to lure Formula One fans and upscale consumers.
The Ferrari 4000 is equipped with a 15.4-inch thin-film-transistor monitor and AMD's 64-bit central processing unit and is priced at over US$2,000.
"We have marketed some 300,000 units of Ferrari-series notebooks around the world in the last two years," Acer senior vice president Jim Wong (
Acer said it hopes to sell over 100,000 units of the latest model after it hits the market worldwide next month.
The ambitious PC vendor also vowed to expand its global market share to 10 percent in the next two to three years, up from the current 4 percent.
Acer, which is the top laptop brand in Europe, is endeavoring to expand in the fast-growing Chinese market this year.
"We expect to squeeze into the top-five club in China's notebook market in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year at the latest, after adjusting our market strategy," Wang said.
Acer hopes to ship a total of 10 million PCs this year, including 7 million laptops, with desktops making up the remainder. The company expects its total shipment to jump to some 15 million next year, driven by replacement demand for laptops, Wang said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”