14 DAY TRIAL // Gigabyte has agreed to publicly apologize to competitor ASUSTek, in Taiwan newspapers on June the 1st. The news comes after ASUS took its case to Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission and initiated legal proceedings against Gigabyte.
The public quarrel between the two Taiwanese hardware manufacturers was initiated by Gigabyte, who claimed that ASUS's EPU energy technology is no match for its DES equivalent. To be more exact, Gigabyte claimed that competitor ASUS used that used poor-quality components for its motherboard product lineup. ASUS responded to Gigabyte in several public statements, in which it condemned Gigabyte's defamatory and false accusations.
ASUS took Gigabyte's claims very seriously, especially when Gigabyte released a photograph with exploded capacitors, which it claimed to be from an ASUS mobo. The photograph proved to be from a VGA card manufactured by another vendor, thus putting Gigabyte in an unfavorable situation. The misused photograph was also the primary reason why Asus decided to take legal actions against its competitor.
This "battle" seems to have come to a stop, with Asus being declared the "winner". According to DigiTimes, Gigabyte has acknowledged that it had done wrong and has agreed to issue an official apology, which is expected to be published, at its expense, in Taiwan newspapers on June 1. Although Gigabyte apologized, it didn't forget to mention that its own DES technology is superior to ASUStek's EPU.
As a response, ASUSTek agreed to drop all legal proceedings related to the issue.
The EPU and DES technologies, from the two motherboard manufacturers, are meant to help a motherboard be more energy efficient. The news will most probably lower customers' confidence in Gigabyte's claims for its energy-saving technology. The company's false accusations against fellow competitor will most certainly put it in a bad light for the times to come.