Last year was a time of rapid growth for Taiwan high-tech companies, and 2000 may be even better.
The 921 quake halted production for days, costing billions, but it also underlined Taiwan's importance as a key link in the global electronics supply chain. Multinationals like Hewlett Packard used the hiccough in supplies from Taiwan as an explanation -- some say an excuse -- for poor sales in the fourth quarter.
Recovery from the Asian economic crisis produced dramatic year-on-year growth figures. Monthly sales at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the country's largest chip maker, doubled from Nov. 1998 to Nov. 1999.
This year both Taiwan and China -- the island's key manufacturing partner and largest potential market -- will join the WTO, providing new opportunities for local manufacturers. The red tape which hinders Taiwan's mainland manufacturing operations may finally be cut.
End of the PC?
While the island's high-tech manufacturers will be focusing their attention on cross-strait relations this year, they also need to keep an eye on global PC markets.
Falling prices have driven growing PC sales in the past two years. This year, they will fall more slowly since it is becoming harder to squeeze a dramatic cost savings out of the format. As one of the world's largest producers of PCs and components, Taiwan's economy is intimately linked to trends like these.
Traditional PC market growth is expected to be flat for the next few years, according to Henry King of International Data Corporation (IDC) in Taipei.
One view of the future has the reins of PC growth being taken up by simpler and cheaper information appliances. For some, the information appliance is the "PC killer" -- a new product that will don the PC crown, and go on to become as ubiquitous as the telephone or television.
For those who see the converging fields of communications and computing meeting at a point, the PC killer will be the offspring of the PC and the mobile phone.
But this is not the first time the PC's demise has been predicted. In fact, the PC killer is beginning to look like the tediously persistent villain from a series of low budget horror flicks. Every few years, the concept returns from the dead with a vengeance. Each time, the PC evolves a little to meet the new challenge, and the beast is dispatched with a stake through the heart. This script has been played out three or four times in the past decade.
Once again, this autumn, manufacturers in Taiwan and abroad were touting a variety of information appliances in the form of palm-sized PCs, Web pads, TV set-top boxes, and so on. No matter what the format, every product has at least two of these three key features: built-in communications, preferably wireless; low cost; and designed for a single application, usually Internet access.
Will 2000 be year that the PC killer finally deals a fatal blow to the desktop PC? Almost certainly not, but the growing necessity of Internet access and the easier availability of high-bandwidth communications are providing an environment increasingly suitable to the information appliance.
The PC, however, is a moving target, constantly evolving. Intel is reducing the cost and complexity of the machine by stripping out dead wood, or legacy hardware. Taiwanese manufacturers are enthusiastic about this process: much of the electronics in a modern PC, especially in its interfaces to the outside world, are unnecessary, merely providing compatibility with older hardware.
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