One interesting observation was the clear shift away from the graphics card sector. Companies that in the past solely produced graphics cards have been hit badly and cannot compete with the likes of Creative, Diamond, 3dfx, ELSA, etc.. Britek/ViewTop have already gone out of business whilst others have had to either stay alive by shifting their focus back to motherboards or diversifying their product line-up. Others such as A-Trend and Skywell have gone in the opposite direction by focusing on the sound department with 5.1 Dolby Digital Speaker and sound card products. This isn't to say that you won't be seeing Taiwanese-made GeForce 256s and Savage 2000s. You can still expect stalwarts like ASUS to continue to develop their graphics product line-up. It's not that the interest has waned but the margins become too small and competition from Europe and the US too strong. Clearly 3dfx, NVIDIA, S3 and ATi would also prefer to keep closer reigns and control of what goes on in the future in South East Asia when it comes to their chips.
Clearly the Camino launch can't come quick enough for the big players like GigaByte (who now produce some 600,000 motherboards per month!), MSI and ASUS. We were shown many different spec i820 motherboards. These included 2 RIMM/2 DIMM, 3 RIMM, 2 RIMM and even 4 DIMM only solutions. Full production is apparently on schedule and the September 27th launch is still on target. In addition to the numerous Camino projects being undertaken, motherboard manufacturers will seemingly have their hands full with Ali, SiS and of course VIA based mainboards.
After the Computex 99 show, it was pretty clear that the direction many motherboard manufactures were taking in order to expand upon their product line: the mobile PC arena. Despite many demo machines being shown at the show, few came through on their promises. Those that did include ASUS, GigaByte (actually Giga-Tech), FIC and B-Com . Interestingly enough, most of the notebooks will be aimed at the 'mini' and/or 'slimline' sectors. Weighing in at only 3-4 pounds and sporting magnesium alloy cases, they actually look pretty flash (especially ASUS' 'M-Series') as shown below.
Currently there's a worldwide shortage of Active Matrix LCD TFT displays and hence the price has remained high this year. Perhaps the Taiwan-based manufacturers are awaiting a fall in prices before releasing their products? Either way, when they do, expect to not only be able to buy motherboards from ASUS, GigaByte, MSI and FIC but fully-fledged, powerful and stylish notebooks too and at a pretty decent price for a change.