Dear Reader:

This is the second last e-paper preceding CeBIT Hannover to deal with product details and covers those two halls not yet mentioned in the previous six editions.

The Hall 2 Taiwan Pavilion will stress Desktop PCs, Notebook PCs, PDAs and Tablet PCs in an appropriately attractive ambience together with bigwigs such as SONY, NEC, JVC, VOBIS and ASUS. Watch out for First International Computer (FIC), Mitac and Tatung for their ranges of Desktop PCs and for major Taiwan notebook makers Clevo, Twinhead, Movita, Spectech and Uniwill, while Amtek, Chromamagic and Innolabs will display their latest Tablet PC developments, and Elelux and Axis for PDAs.

While European Desktop PC vendors paint a gloomy picture due to alleged market saturation and customers investment reluctance, Gartner Dataquest reports that the Asia-Pacific region outpaced the world in PC market growth in 2002, with shipments in this region having reached 21,7 million units, an 8.6% increase over 2001, compared with a world market growth of 3%. "The Asia-Pacific market's growth was a significant contributor to the world industry returning to positive growth in 2002", says Dataquest , adding that much of the growth came from the home and small and medium enterprise market. Vendors in Asia did not shed tears but did their homework by pursuing their markets with aggressive instalment schemes, bundling programs and introducing trade-in programs for older equipment to stimulate upgrading and replacement.

And while Dataquest forecasts that Tablet PCs will account for only 1% of worldwide notebook shipments in 2003, accusing lack of application support, clumsy hardware and premium prices as deterrents for most users, Taiwan's makers are undaunted to promote them at CeBIT on a large scale and will simply let customers judge for themselves.

As for PDAs, Taiwan manufacturers will ship 4,1 million pieces in 2003, up from the 2 million of last year, the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) of the government-backed Institute for Information Industry (III) predicts, and Nikkei Market Access backs this by forecasting a 14% production growth to 10.8 million units. So Taiwan will be strong at CeBIT in anticipation of this business.

Much gloomier is MIC's assessment that the notebook computer industry is headed for a huge overcapacity this year by stating that Taiwan factories now have capacity to manufacture 80 million notebook computer for the full year while worldwide demand is expected to be 35 million units only.

And last not least, the Hall 9 Taiwan Pavilion will emphasise the highly professional part of Taiwan's ICT Industry - - Industrial PC workstations, Automatic Data Capture and Automatic Identification. Did you know, for instance, that ADVANTECH is not only Taiwan's biggest and most prominent maker of industrial computer workstation equipment, but actually the world's number two of this discipline, with sizeable orders from Siemens and other world renowned household names in addition to its own brand ? And that Taiwan annually supplies between 80 - 90 percent of the world's demand of scanners?

After having tried Hannover-Messe in parallel as well as other industrial fairs for promoting its IPC technology, Taiwan has found it meaningful to concentrate on CeBIT, due to this fair's qualified expert visitors. So, if you are a buyer in this field, do not miss to screen Hall 9 for Taiwan top manufacturers of IPCs including ADVANTECH, AXIOM TECHNOLOGY, AAEON TECHNOLOGY, ICP ELECTRONICS and NEXCOM INTERNATIONAL.

And now for something completely different

"One man's owl is another man's nightingale" says a German proverb - - but is the above mentioned notebook overcapacity really a blessing in disguise for buyers ?
There is new reason to doubt it, because last week in Taipei the unthinkable happened:

One of Taiwan's most prominent notebook manufacturers refused the OEM order of one of the world's biggest and most famous brands, because this buyer did not try to negotiate the deal but bluntly requested a flat 700 US$ for a full-fledged notebook computer, hoping to take advantage of the tight market situation.

No wonder, that Germany's most competent consumer protection and testing foundation recently warned that the quality difference between famous-brand and no-name computers today is less than people commonly believe.

"Sale by volume brings big business! " said that often-quoted Munich market wife, giving away eggs for 9 cents apiece that she bought for 11. For prices, it may be a jungle out there at this year's CeBIT, but take it from above example that there is an end to every flagpole. and that Taiwan industries seem poised to assume more responsibility for their product quality today.

" I never refuse an order, money is money, but if you pay me peanuts, you will get monkey business! " Taiwan's biggest manufacturer of industrial connectors told me - - - but that was back in March 1980! Today, Taiwan industries seem poised to assume responsibility for the quality of their products.

In one week from now, you will receive e-paper No. 9, the last one before CeBIT.
The contents? Be surprised!

Yours truly,

Dieter Neumann
(U.I.P.R.E)
Senior Editor,
Hannover Pacific Publications
Neumann@Taiwan-Technology.com
www.Taiwan-Technology.com
www.cebit.de

Another preview from our exhibitors:

	Successfully launching with Semi Rugged Notebook, Twinhead will expand the category with 15" display... Successfully launching with Semi Rugged Notebook,Twinhead will expand the category with 15" display that carry out the same protection to your LCD, HDD Data and Optical Drive. With external AGP8x Graphics Display, the new Twinhead Notebook can get the job done for indoors or outdoors.. ....more
	World's Top Performing Mainboard - Albatron's FSB800 MHz Intel Based Platform! Albatron's Limited Edition Anniversary Mainboard - the 'PX845PEV-800' February 2003 - While the industry eagerly awaits Intel's announcement of their latest FSB800 chipset, Albatron Technology is already ahead of the game with the announcement of a new FSB800 mainboard - the Anniversary Edition 'PX845PEV-800. ...more
	D400S - an ultimate choice for the Smart! A Cost effective powerful Desktop Replacement with Mobility The D400S is an all-in-one Notebook that supports the Intel Pentium 4 processor (both FSB400 & FSB533) of up to 2.8GHz. You will also find latest technology like DDR333, USB 2.0, 802.11b WLAN, Bluetooth, CMOS Camera aligned to make this Notebook more powerful. . ....more
	Portwell Unveils Next Generation Communication Appliance Platform with Dual Xeon Processors and Six Front-accessible Gigabit Interfaces Portwell Inc, a leading Communication Appliance platform provider, unveiled the NAR-7070 appliance server based on cutting-edge 533 MHz Intel E7501 chipset and dual 82546 Gigabit Ethernet controllers. ....more
	MiTAC Technology Corporation Unveils Its First Consumer Electronic PC Hannover, Germany, March 12~19, 2003 - MiTAC Technology Corporation (TSE 3005) announced today the readiness of Taiwan's first consumer electronic PC. Powered by Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron processors...more
	APLUX Tablet PC -TVM2C Aplux Tablet PC, all-in-one computing solution, contains not only the simplicity of paper and pen with the power of the notebook computer, but also the built-in PC camera and network-ready functions. ...more
	TaiwanTechnology Directory & CD-ROM Free of charge at CeBIT 2003 12. - 19. 2003 Hannover