Asian PC Companies Form Complex Partnerships

To relaunch their PC businesses, Asian vendors, especially those in Japan, are taking different paths than in years past. Instead of trying to make every PC component, they are forming complex partnerships and manufacturing alliances with outside companies (and sometimes competitors).

Most Asian PC makers are taking one of three routes to get their desktops to the market: Go with Intel or Taiwan -- or both. For example, Sony and Toshiba will have their new PCs made o n an OEM basis by Intel. Sony and Toshiba will also buy PC boards and processors from Intel.

In contrast, Fujitsu and Hitachi are buying P C boards and systems from one source: Acer. Meanwhile, NEC, Japan's largest PC maker, last spring merged its international PC operations with Packard Bell. The companies will join forces in product development, except in Japan. They also have an OEM deal and monitor joint venture in China with Taiwan's GVC.

"Japanese PC companies are concerned about getting their manufacturing costs down," says Colley Hwang, director of the government-sponsored Market Intelligence Center in Taipei. "So I think you'll see more partnerships between Japanese and Taiwan companies."

To get a hint of what's coming from some of these vendors in the desktop arena, it may be useful to find out what Taiwan is doing with motherboards. Acer will ship the AP65, a baby-AT PC board that supports Pentium Pro processors ranging from 150 to 200 MHz. The AP65 comes with Intel's 440FX chip set, up to 512 MB of extended-data-out (EDO) DRAM, four 32-bit PCI slots, and three ISA slots. Acer also offers boards based on the emerging ATX form factor. ATX is a baby-AT baseboard rotated 90 degrees.

Later this year, Asustek will ship a board for Pentium-based PCs. The PI-XP65UP607 comes with a riser or daughtercard that provides a smooth upgrade path from the Pentium to the Pentium Pro. This ATX-based design comes with the 440FX chip set and a SIMM socket that supports EDO DRAM. Asustek will also offer a board with a Pentium Pro-level chip set from SIS.

This fall, First International Computer will ship the PA-6010, an ATX board built around Via's Pentium Pro-based core-logic IC, the VT82C680 Apollo chip set, a three-piece solution. The board supports EDO DRAM, burst-EDO (BEDO) DRAM, and synchronous DRAM (SDRAM). It also supports four 72-pin SIMM or two 168-pin dual-in-line-memory-module (DIMM) configurations. Like the boards from Acer and Asustek, the PA-6010 also supports the universal serial bus (USB). First International's board will sell for $150.

By the end of the year, GVC will offer a range of Pentium Pro-based boards. Its first tw o boards, the ASP620 and ASP621, are ATX designs that support the 440FX chip set, 3-D graphics, 16-bit sound, infrared, and USB. The next board, the ASP610, is a low-cost solution that supports these features as well as Intel's Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), a high-speed memory bus that provides a 200-Mbps link between the graphics accelerator and the chip set.

Next year, GVC hopes to show a board that will support Intel's next-generation Pentium Pro chip, code-named Klamath. This ATX board will support AGP, 3-D graphics, USB, and other features. GVC may also have an all-in-one board based on Chromatic Research's Mpact chip, a multimedia processor that has 3-D graphics, 16-bit sound, video, a fax/modem, and other functions -- all on the same IC -- says Kenny Huang, marketing manager.