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ASUS

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ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
Type: Public (LSE: ASKD; TSE: 2357)
Founded: 1989
Headquarters: Taipei, Taiwan
Key people: Jonney Shih, CEO and Chairman; TH Tung, VP and founder; Ted Hsu, VP and founder
Industry: Computer hardware
Electronics
Products: Motherboards, graphics cards, notebooks, PDAs and others
(see complete list of categories)
Revenue: NT$8,674 million (2004)
(US$265 million) [1]
Operating income: NT$3,250 million
(US$99.4 million)
Net income: NT$11,504 million
(US$352.0 million)
Employees: 58,000
Website: www.asus.com

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (Chinese: 華碩電腦股份有限公司, Chinese Large Computer limited liability company) is a Taiwan-based company that produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, notebook computers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, and computer cooling systems. Commonly called by their brand name ASUS (pronounced [ˈeɪsʊs], [ˈeɪsəs], or [eɪˈsuːs]) it is listed on London Stock Exchange and Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Contents

History

Origin of the name

ASUS was founded in 1989 in Taiwan by TH Tung, Ted Hsu, Wayne Hsieh and MT Liao. The current CEO and Chairman of ASUS, Jonney Shih, joined the company in 1994. According to the ASUS sales manager Alexander Kim the name ASUS originated from Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology [2]. The first three letters of the word were dropped to give the resulting name a high position in alphabetical listings.

In 2004, ASUS was reported to sell more motherboards than three other leading companies combined, [3] reaching 30 million. This number, however, includes rebranding contracts.

In 2005, shipments from ASUS, ECS, Gigabyte, and MSI totaled 104.86 million units. ASUS led with about 52 million units, followed by ECS with 20 million, MSI with 18 million and Gigabyte with 16.5 million. MSI revised its motherboard shipments from an estimate of 16.7 million units to 18 million, according to the company.

ASUS also produces components for other corporations, including Sony (PlayStation 2), Apple Computer (iPod, iPod Shuffle, MacBook), Alienware, Falcon Northwest, HP and Compaq.

Timeline

  • September/October 2003: debuts in the cellphone market with the J100 model.[4]
  • September 2005: realizes their first PhysX accelerator card[5] (currently expected in May 2006)[6]
  • December 2005: enters the LCD TV market with the TLW32001 model, initially only available on the Taiwan market.[7]
  • March 9, 2006: ASUS is announced to be one of the producers of the first Microsoft Origami models, together with Samsung and Founder. Samsung and ASUS devices expected by April 2006.[8]

Manufacturing facilities

As of January 2006, ASUS has manufacturing facilities in Taiwan (Taipei, Luchu, Nankan, Kweishan) and in mainland China (Suzhou), with a monthly production capacity of two million motherboards and 150,000 notebook computers (Source: ASUS official site)

Product categories

In alphabetical order:

ASUS has introduced a number of original features and tools that complemented its products, especially motherboards. The table below lists them, together with some third-party technologies, rebranded under ASUS-specific names (note: the acronym AI, which prefixes many of the feature names, stands for Artificial Intelligence).

Name Year of Introduction Product Description Patented
AI NET2 YYYY Motherboards Diagnoses LAN connection problems before starting the OS
AI NOS YYYY Motherboards Non-delay Overclocking System. A dynamic overclocking technology Yes
AI Proactive YYYY Motherboards <purpose>
AI Quiet YYYY Motherboards Controls speed of fan and processor for a more quiet operation.
Audio DJ YYYY Motherboards and notebooks Allows playing Audio CDs without turning the computer on. Notebooks supporting this feature normally have play/pause, stop and other control buttons on the front, where they are accessible even when the notebook is closed.
BIOS EZ Flash YYYY Motherboards Allows to update the BIOS through a non-boot floppy which just contains the new BIOS image. Built-in with the BIOS firmware and can be accessed by pressing ALT+F2 during the power-on self-test
C.P.R.
(CPU Parameter Recall)		 YYYY Motherboards Automatically restores default CPU settings at reboot when the system fails due to overclocking.
ASUS CrashFree BIOS2 YYYY Motherboards If the BIOS becomes corrupted, CrashFree BIOS 2 allows the user to perform a recovery using the motherboard support CD.
Color Shine (or Colour Shine), Crystal Shine YYYY Laptop LCDs ASUS marketing names for the anti-reflective LCD technology.
GameFace Live 2004? Graphics Cards A multi-player audio and video chat solution allowing online gamers to see and talk each other while playing. As of 2006, it is limited to DirectX games and allows up to eight simultaneous players.
GameLiveShow YYYY Graphics Cards Allows gamers to broadcast

References

External links