USB, memory products dominate Computex

The 29th year of Computex, one of the world's largest ICT exhibitions came to

a close on June 6, 2009. The five day event that was held from June 2 to 6, 2009

saw no major impact of the global recession, with only 25 companies doing a

no-show. Nearly 1,700 exhibitors showcased their products in 4,498 booths as

compared to 1,725 exhibitors in 2008, with Kingston and Foxconn being among the

companies that gave the event a miss. During its first four days, the show

welcomed 32,178 international buyers from 214 countries and more than one lakh

international and local visitors. The top five countries of international buyers

were from US, Japan, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Korea, with Australia joining

the top 10 this year.

This year's show included a wide range of product categories such as computer

systems, components, data storage devices, software, peripherals, display and

digital entertainment products, mobile Internet, WiMax, green technology and

netbooks.

In his address during the opening ceremony of Computex 2009, Chih-Kang Wang,

Chairman, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), said that the

global competitiveness of Taiwan's IT industry has climbed to the number two

position in the world. “According to estimates by Institute for Information

Industry (III) in 2008, the overall output of Taiwan's IT hardware industry for

both home and abroad is $110.271 billion, representing a 4.6 percent growth over

2007. However, with the financial turmoil that began in the second half of 2008,

the electronics industry has suffered the most obvious impact. The total revenue

of the global ICT industry will shrink by 2.3 percent and the results have been

reflected in many ICT-related international exhibitions. However, Computex 2009

is endeavoring to maintain the scale of the exhibition amidst this economic

downturn.”

In his opening address, JT Wang, Chairman, Taipei Computer Association said

that the main theme of Computex 2009 has changed from 'Compuetx catch the WiMax'

to 'WiMax on the Move,' symbolizing the launch of commercial WiMax operations in

Taiwan.

Generating business



The highlight of Computex has always been the procurement meetings arranged

by TAITRA. This year, TAITRA arranged more than 2,000 individual procurement

meetings during the three days. These meetings generated on-site business worth

a projected $100 million and are expected to create $700 million in follow-up

business. According to TAITRA sources, this year, the three-day affair attracted

256 overseas companies from 42 countries.

Nearly 1,700 exhibitors showcased their products in 4,498 booths

Many firms represented emerging markets such as Turkey, Argentina, Russia,

India and the UAE. Most buyers showed great interest in notebooks, netbooks,

GPS, LCD monitors, PoS, etc.

USB and memory



USB flash drives, memory cards, SSDs and DRAM were among the major

attractions in the expo and nearly 20 percent of the exhibitors were showcasing

their products in this space. The exhibitors stole the show with their

innovative designs. Among them were companies like A-Data, Apacer, Kingmax,

Patriot, OCZ and PNY. A-Data won the Taiwan Excellence Pavilion Award for its

S805 USB flash drive, X series cooling solutions and Turbo Series CF 350X SD

card.

CEO Summit Forum



This year's Computex Taipei CEO Summit Forum enjoyed the presence of

high-ranking executives from Asus, ARM, Google, HP and TI as keynote speakers

and panelists. The theme of the year was “Mobile Technologies for a Green

World.” The forum also had numerous high-ranking officials share their new

ideas. Nearly 7,000 people participated in 90 forum sessions

Microsoft forum featured a keynote speech entitled 'Windows Makes Life

Simpler' by Steven Guggenheimer, Corporate VP-Original Equipment Manufacturer

(OEM) Division. The forum attracted nearly 3,300 attendees. There was also the

'Future Now' presentation at e21forum 2009 led by Sean Maloney, Executive

VP-Sales and Marketing, Intel, and green technology panel discussion to share

green business strategies with Taiwan enterprises.

DRAMeXchange Compuforum 2009 'Survival Battle-Process Migration and

Performance' discussed hot topics surrounding DRAM, NAND Flash and SSD

industries and was joined by 250 leading memory makers, module manufacturers, PC

OEMs and financial analysts.

'Enabling the 3C World of Quadplay' was the theme for NGN Forum 2009. Nearly

660 people participated in the event discussing how in an all-IP network era,

fixed line, mobile, Internet and television have begun to carry out an

unprecedented large integration, leading us to whole new life experience,

multiple services and business models.

This year's Digitimes Computex Forum, held on June 3 2009, theme was Mobile

Technology and Design, bringing in the latest mobile market and technology. The

discussion on June 4 focused on industrial trends and application of digital

signage. In total, around 600 people participated in the show.

Green technologies



'Mobile Technologies for a Green World' was the theme of Computex Taipei CEO

Summit Forum. Lots of green products were showcased including CPU, HDD, PCB,

power supply, LED backlight and NB. Intel's Ultra-Low Voltage Intel Core 2 dual

core processor and 50 percent less power consumption HDD from Hitachi's EcoTrac

Travelstart5K500.B new range were some examples. The power savers introduced by

Compucase and Gigabyte as well as SSD by A-Data, Apacer, and Transcend were all

in line with the green concept.

New launches



There were several new launches and announcements that lit up Computex 2009.

Acer and Google teamed up to unveil the Android Notebook. The Aspire One

netbook featuring Android operating system offers users a faster connection to

the Internet, further enhancing efficiency on-the-go. The introduction of

Android into Acer netbooks presents customers with another choice of operating

system. In addition to Microsoft's operating system, a majority of Acer netbooks

will also offer Android in the future. Users may then select their preferred

choice of operating system. Acer believes the Android operating system will

contribute significantly to the worldwide netbook market growth. Android is a

free open source and fully customizable mobile platform. Its full stack offering

includes an operating system middleware, and key mobile applications. Third

party developers can customize and integrate Android applications. Acer plans to

launch its first Aspire one netbooks with Android in Q3 2009.

The long waited core i5 mainstream processors are on their way to desktops,

following the announcement made by Intel in Computex. Codenamed Lynnfield, they

are based on 45nm process technology, with four cores and hyper-threading. Like

Core i7, it will feature 8MB of shared L3 cache, but Core i5 will support

dual-channel RAM, rather than the triple-channel RAM that Core i7 supports. Core

i5 motherboards will include the Intel P55 Express Chipset, which Intel says is

designed for high performance and lower power and in combination with Core i5

delivers faster multi-tasking, digital media creation and gaming performance.

Already many motherboard manufacturers like Gigabyte, ECS and MSI to name a

few have made themselves ready for the launch of Intel's new chipset and

processor.

AMD also publicly demonstrated the world's first Microsoft DirectX 11

graphics processor. The fusion of AMD's new graphics processors with forthcoming

DirectX 11 programming interface is set to change both applications and PC

gaming for better. On the other hand, bringing its 45nm technology to new

high-volume processor designs, AMD announced two new dual core desktop

processors-AMD Athlon II X2 250 and AMD Phenom II X2 550.

There were few other important announcements like Microsoft announcing the

world wide adoption of Windows 7, Asus unveiling 11-inch EeePC Seashell, MSI

displaying its latest line of X-Slim series notebook and Nvidia unveiling seven

new high definition mobile Internet devices all based on Nvidia Tegra to name a

few.

First held in 1981, Computex Taipei will celebrate its 30th birthday in 2010.

For the past 29 years, Computex Taipei has transformed itself into not only the

world's leading ICT procurement platform, but also a perfect world stage for new

product and technology launches from home and abroad.