14 DAY TRIAL // A sad "love story" ended shortly after Gigabyte and ASUS called off the Gigabyte United joint venture. However, the company still stands, as a separate independent company from "mother" Gigabyte. And ASUS has some interesting plans for their subsidiary Asusalpha Computer, which has been one major player in the notebook industry, manufacturing notebooks for Apple, Dell, Sony and Toshiba.
The "problem" appeared when ASUS' own notebook sales, which were manufactured by the same company, grew to a place where they have become a competition for the companies which had ongoing contracts with Asusalpha. Therefore, these companies have been forced to switch their notebook orders to Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Quanta Computer.
ASUS is also somewhat forced to spin-off its own-brand notebook unit because of a large deal made with Dell, for 1 million notebooks. If they are unable to complete the process by the first quarter of 2008, future orders from Dell might be in question, and coupled with the facts that Apple's MacBook orders will end in November of this year and further shipments to Toshiba will be limited, all this is going to be a problem for ASUS. The company's own notebook sales have increased, but having a limited order of notebooks from major players will represent bad business, and losing names such as Dell, Toshiba and Sony from their buddies list in favor of Foxconn and Quanta means money goes in the wrong pockets.
Asrock, ASUS' motherboard spin-off, has had some hard times trying to get approval from the public, and by competing with Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), PC Chips, Jetway and others for the entry-level to mainstream segments of the market took its toll on their credibility as well. The line of business the company was working in had little to do with the big companies in the domain, and using cheap components in order to produce competitive-priced motherboards hasn't brought anything good to their reputation either. Asusalpha probably won't share the same fate as Asrock, they not only have different segments in which they operate but also have a different potential, with Asusalpha actually having a chance of being a solid competitor to Ouanta Computer in the notebook manufacturing industry.