SARS isolating Asia
Business contacts with Asia are being moved into the InterNet, meetings, that are not strictly necessary, are being postponed. Whether and how this affects business, is difficult to quantify. In the meantime the first date has fallen victim to SARS. The Semi, that should be taking place 6. - 8 May, has been moved to 12 - 14 August. The Fair chairman and CEO Stanley Myers had no choice - the attendance would be nil. Intel changed the big Developers form in Taipei and Beijing into a series of smaller events. The 32nd floor of the Pacific Place Towers, that Intel is occupying, has been closed and the employees are working from their homes.
The dividing line between a panic and the common sense is razor thin, the workers feel often insecure: after protests of his people, Günther Trautzl, CEO of AK-Elektronik, had to meet his Asian guests outside the premises in a hotel.
But most companies are reacting with calm: "no, we do not fear production or delivery losses" so the general tenor of the industry. Aberdeen Group from Boston however does not report any 'all-clear' signal: The supply of processors, memory modules and other construction units from China and Taiwan is not guaranteed any longer. Infineon, STMelectronics and National Semiconductor on the other side see no problems:"No, we do not fear any production fall-outs," is the grapewine of the industry. Intel stresses, that its production and logistics is able to handle problems which are quite bigger. Infineon has "Business contingency" plans, which deal both with supply as well as production problems.
That the semicon industry speaks with one single voice on this issue, has something to do with low utilization of their fabs. Were we in an allocation phase, so one of the speakers, the situation would look a little different.
from Markt&Technik 17.04.2003 |
