[Wikinews-l] 2008 COMPUTEX Taipei TCA Official Release for Closing

[Rico C. Shen @ Wikinews]

Perfect finale for COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2008 with exhibition size and number of
buyers both achieving new heights

June 7, 2008, Taipei Computer Association.

COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2008, the second largest ICT exhibition in the world, ended
on June 7th. It was the first time ever that 4 exhibition halls have been
used in COMPUTEX TAIPEI, namely TWTC Hall 1, TWTC Hall 3, Taipei
International Convention Center and the brand new Nangang Exhibition Hall.
With this much capacity the scale of the exhibition has increased by 53
percent compared with last year. According to estimates made by the
organizers, the total number of visitors this year, amounted to 106,517
people, within which 34,685 are overseas buyers, 5 percent more than last
year's 33,027, reaching a new height. It is also estimated that the 5-day
exhibition has brought purchase orders for Taiwan's ICT industry that
amounts to more than 20 billion US dollars, effectively increasing Taiwan's
visibility on the world stage. COMPUTEX TAIPEI is not only a trade
exhibition, but is also one of the most important information and technology
exchange platforms for the global ICT industry.

The largest number of buyers was again from the USA and next in place are
Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, India, Russia
etc. The increase of buyers from Asian territories shows that Asia has
already become the center of the global IT industry market and also that the
demand for IT products is rapidly growing in rising economies like China,
India and Russia.

WiMAX and ultra-portable NB have become the focus points of COMPUTEX,
attracting endless market opportunities

According to the results of statistical analyses of pre-registered buyers
and IPOs, communication products (3G, WiMAX), industrial computers, Mobile
Devices / UMPCs, touch screens, Green IT represent a major proportion on the
buyer's target product procurement list this year. Coinciding with the four
main product themes of this year's exhibition, which is W.I.N.G. (WiMAX, ICT
Crossover, New Generation NB, Green IT). Among these products, WiMAX and
ultra-portable notebooks are especially high-profiled.

WiMAX is the main event of this year's COMPUTEX, starting with the signing
of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taiwan Ministry of
Economic Affairs (MOEA) and Intel Taiwan, to invest 500 million US dollars
to jointly accelerate the commercial deployment of WiMAX in Taiwan. And then
there is the exhibition of WiMAX Expo, Taipei, which coincided with COMPUTEX
TAIPEI, showing Taiwan's transition into a proverbial "WiMAX Island" that
inhabits all the latest technology and products related to WiMAX. The WiMAX
shuttle bus service is providing visitors with the opportunity to experience
the stable and fast internet connection of WiMAX, even when the user is
traveling at high speed on a vehicle, in this instance, a bus. Many buyers
have expressed that the first time they began to understand and actually use
WiMAX, was at COMPUTEX, and they also believe that, in the future, WiMAX can
connect the concepts of digital family with consumer electronics, thereby
creating huge market opportunities.

And the ultra-portable notebook computer market with display sizes below
10-inch, is no longer dominated solely by the Eee PC from Asustek. Other
manufacturers have also begun to put their products into the market, like
the Aspire One from Acer, the Netbook M912 from Gigabyte, the Wind NB from
MSI and the second generation OEM laptop from ECS, the Classmate PC etc.
have all appeared in the exhibition. In addition, E-lead, AWARE, Amtek are
also launching products with similar concepts. From these newly launched
products, there are more innovative and user-friendly designs aimed at
screens, keyboards and operational systems.

Besides the competition between computer systems manufacturers, the
activities of semiconductor giants like Intel and AMD are also a hotspot of
attention. Starting with the announcement of Intel Atom at day one of the
exhibition, the Atom processor has become the hottest keyword at this year's
exhibition. You can find the trails of Intel Atom on a wide variety of
product applications, including ultra-portable NB, MID, desktop PC,
motherboards and even embedded systems. To respond to this development, AMD
has announced a new NB platform codenamed Puma, and revealed that
manufacturers like Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu and Acer are already using this
platform. Obviously, the competition of next generation NB is reaching
DEFCON One.

Best Choice award winning products are highly sought-after; results for the
popularity award "Buyers' Choice" are out

The organizers have specially set up two pavilions separately at Shinyi and
Nangang this year, to exhibit the Best Choice award winning products. During
the exhibition, buyers and the media alike were continuously asking for
details about the products. The Best Choice award list has become sort of an
indicator for product procurement and media reports. According to the jury,
which consists of IPO and juries from international awards, it is possible
to get a peep view of this year's main product trends, during the product
choosing process.Therefore, the award winning products represent the best
trendsetting products of this year.

After the Best Choice award list was announced at the first day of the
exhibition, a buyer's popularity vote was held and ended at 6:00pm on June
6th. The activity lasted for 4 days and accumulated about 5000 votes.
Finally, the winner of this year's Buyers' Choice for Best Choice Award is
the ARES CG6155 by Asustek, which is also winner of the award category,
Product Design-Industrial Design. Asustek is also the greatest winner of
Best Choice this year, winning the most awards.

Reputation for being an excellent procurement exhibition and ICT information
and technology exchange platform

To enhance the B2B platform features of COMPUTEX TAIPEI, the organizers have
limited the access of the first 2 days of the exhibition to "buyers only",
which has received a lot of positive approval from buyers and exhibiting
manufacturers alike. In addition, the Taipei Computer Association (TCA), one
of the COMPUTEX organizers, has held 3 Taiwan-Japanese match making forums
with topics like embedded systems, WiMAX and PND products. The purpose of
these forums is to help facilitate the understanding between Taiwanese
manufacturers and overseas buyers, so that manufacturers can better
understand the procurement demands of buyers and buyers can also know more
about the research and development capabilities of Taiwanese manufacturers.

Furthermore, according to the interview results of many buyers and foreign
press it is a common perception that COMPUTEX is successfully integrating
the supply chain of the ICT industry, and making it more convenient for
buyers to fulfill their procurement needs. In addition, many new trends and
technological results that are not necessarily being shown at other
international exhibitions can be seen here at COMPUTEX. One buyer from South
Africa has even given the remark that COMPUTEX is the "place to be" for
people working in the ICT industry, revealing the fact that COMPUTEX has
left a deeply positive impression as an international procurement
exhibition.

COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2009 begins from June 2nd till June 6th. See you next year.