Proview faces bankruptcy threat
A major creditor of Proview Electronics Co (唯冠電子), which is challenging Apple Inc’s use of the iPad trademark, has moved to have the ailing computer monitor maker liquidated, reports said yesterday.
Taiwan-based Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險) is seeking US$8.68 million in debts and has filed an application to have Proview declared bankrupt, Xinhua news agency and other China-based media reported.
Proview’s China subsidiary is based in Shenzhen, where an official at the city’s Intermediate Court, who gave only his surname, Zhu, said he expected an announcement regarding the case soon.
Proview lawyer Ma Dongxiao (馬東曉) said the company believed its financial problems would not affect the handling of a court case in which Apple is appealing a ruling against its claim to the iPad trademark in China.
Apple says it bought the trademark from Proview Electronics in 2009. Proview is suing Apple in the US, seeking to have that deal ruled invalid.
TAITRA to hold floor at CeBIT
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) will hold a press conference tomorrow at Germany’s CeBIT fair to showcase 66 new products from the nation’s leading information and communications technology (ICT) companies.
The new products will include the Padfone and the Eee Pad Transformer TF201 from Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) and a 14-inch Ultrabook laptop from Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉科技), TAITRA said in a statement.
Executives from Asustek, Gigabyte, PC peripherals supplier Thermaltake Group (曜越集團) and networking solutions provider ZyXEL Communications Corp (合勤科技) will also share their views on technology transformation, Ultrabooks and cloud computing.
CeBIT, the world’s biggest technology and telecoms fair, opens today in Hannover, Germany, with a focus on big data, cloud computing, mobility and social media.
Refiner schedules maintenance
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) has scheduled maintenance at its Mailiao oil refinery for the second half of next month, Lin Keh-yen (林克彥), a company spokesman, said yesterday by telephone.
The company will carry out work on a crude distillation unit, the No. 1 residue fluid catalytic cracker and a residual desulfurization system.
Chung Nan plans NT$1.6bn loan
Chung Nan Textile Co (中南紡織), a textile manufacturer, has hired Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) to help it arrange a NT$1.6 billion loan (US$54.2 million), according to a person familiar with the matter.
The five-year facility is being marketed to other lenders in syndication and will pay an annual interest rate of 2.77 percent, the person said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.
Bonds prices up, NT dollar dips
Government bond prices gained yesterday, pushing benchmark 10-year yields to an 11-week low, after China cut its economic growth target, while the New Taiwan dollar dropped against the greenback.
The rate on the government’s 1.25 percent notes due March 2022 fell 0.01 percentage points to 1.259 percent, prices from GRETAI Securities Market showed. That’s the lowest closing level for a benchmark 10-year bond since Dec. 19.
The NT dollar weakened 0.2 percent to NT$29.518 against its US counterpart from Saturday, when the market was open to make up for a holiday on Feb. 27, according to Taipei Forex Inc.
Turnover totaled US$732 million.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to