Competing Against Its Own Customers

Most Taiwanese PC companies build systems strictly on an OEM basis. Others walk a fine line between manufacturing systems for OEMs and selling products with their own brand names. This is a delicate balancing act because the PC company runs the danger of competing against its own customers.

Acer, Taiwan's largest and most famous computer company, manages to dance around the situation very carefully and successfully. In the notebook PC market, for example, Acer is coming out with some solutions for a potentially touchy situation for its customers, according to Haydn Hsieh, vice president and general manager of the company' s Mobile Systems Business Division. "In the second half of this year, we will have different products for own brand name [notebook line] and our OEM business," he says.

Hsieh did not describe the company's product lines in detail. But in the second half of this year Acer will roll out its latest name-brand portable, the AcerNote 970, a Pentium-based notebook with a built-in CD-ROM drive, 16-bit sound, and other multimedia features. Acer also builds notebooks for other companies, including Apple and ICL.

Twinhead also builds products under its own logo and for OEMs, including Hewlett-Packard. Meanwhile, First International Computer and Mitac are relaunching their brand names. FIC will sell its PCs and notebooks under the Leo brand name in select markets in Asia and Europe -- but not in the U.S. And Mitac, after sticking to an OEM strategy over the last year, plans to begin selling notebooks under its own logo in similar markets.