Richard,
<The hand behind VIA, FIC, Cyrix and PC133
Perhaps it's Intel's real enemy.
Small nimble Taiwanese companies like FIC and VIA are part of much larger conglomerates that are much less publicized. In the case of FIC and VIA, they are part of the tentacles of a super conglomerate called Formosa Plastics (Formosa = Portugese for Beautiful, the name given by Portugese to Taiwan when they first arrived there.) This conglomerate is better known as Nanya. Nanya is probably Asia's biggest plastic producer and probably the world, with meteoric growth due to a very aggressive leadership. You think of Dupont+GE, you get the idea.
As we were discussing the Via/Cyrix purchase before, it also occured to me that E-machines is also a Taiwanese consortium. Might even be tied in to the one above. Sounds like the Taiwanese, or Formosa Plastics, might want to dominate that low-end of the computing platform (Cyrix processors, e-machines, SDRAM). Personally, I think the justice department might want to look into PC-dumping charges as well. All of the ads for E-machines systems that I can find have the $399 price, but it now includes a rebate (around $50-$75) directly from the manufacturer. Sounds to me like the channel wasn't making any profit and was going to stop carrying their products so they had to raise the price for the dealers but not the customers. I found it hard to believe that they were making any profit at $399 -- it has to be doubly hard if you're giving back $75 on every system you sell right out of your own pocket.
Tom Warren - any thoughts on or additional knowledge about the interrelationship of the Taiwanese companies?
Dave |
