Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) expects to make more than NT$450 million (US$13.52 million) in sales during the upcoming Information Technology Month (IT Month) trade show, a company executive said yesterday.
The company expects to sell about 6,000 units of Eee PCs during the exhibition, on top of more than 10,000 units of conventional laptops, said Kevin Lin (林福能), vice president in charge of Asustek’s sales department.
IT Month will start tomorrow at Taipei World Trade Center’s Exhibition Halls 1 and 3, where IT vendors are expected to roll out various promotions and gifts to attract holiday shoppers.
In line with its efforts to build a global brand and create a loyal following, Asustek will not be implementing further price reductions for its EeePCs, or low-cost netbooks, as discounts were offered earlier, the company’s notebook product manager Jose Liao (廖逸翔) said.
Limited edition pink S101 netbooks will also be introduced at the show, along with gifts for buyers and the chance to take part in a lottery draw.
Liao said that 7-inch netbooks will be phased out starting in the first quarter of next year, leaving only 8.9 and 10-inch netbooks in the market.
However, the company will not be offering 12-inch screen models for the slim, Apple MacAir look-alike because of restrictions by Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp.
Liao said Asustek was working on increasing collaborations with telecommunications operators to position the netbook as an affordable “second laptop” for consumers.
In related news, Microsoft’s MSN Windows Live online services group said yesterday it considered its proprietary Silverlight technology as an entrypoint into the booming multimedia market.
Solutions Research forecast that from last year through 2010, global online multimedia market revenues would increase from US$1 billion to US$5.9 billion, Leslie Chu (朱會泳), general manager for MSN’s Online Services Group in Taiwan and Hong Kong, said at a press conference.
Microsoft Silverlight technology is similar to Flash which supports powerful applications and delivers high quality, interactive video across Web and mobile devices, the company said.
To promote a content-rich Web site, MSN has collaborated with Japanese TV producer Koichi Toda to create a mini-soap series called Climax to produce five to six-minute clips featuring famous Japanese movie and TV celebrities.
Taiwan is currently the only country running this pilot series in its “Silverlight Multimedia Store.”
“Rather than creating a YouTube kind of environment, which we already have through SoapBox, or an Apple iTunes store, MSN is working at obtaining popular music concert, TV and movie rights to air programs on our platform free of charge to viewers,” said Paul Lin (林伯龍), channel manager at MSN Online Services Group.
The company’s primary business revenues are still derived from online advertising shown when the clips are shown, he said.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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