June 4, 04

This year's annual Computex, the 24th, opened on June 1 with 1.329 exhibitors, up in number by 7% and by occupied space by 16,7% from last year, taking up every piece of available space in the Taipei World Trade Center and its adjoining World Trade Center. Organizers hastened to tell everybody who wanted to listen that this show has now grown to the world's second largest ICT show by exhibitor numbers, albeit with a very wide berth to CeBIT Hannover, and, with a token number of foreign exhibitors only, without the number One's international flair.

But this year COMPUTEX decidedly demonstrated that Taiwan outgrew from its olden image as an OEM show for foreign visitors of the distributor channel level by stressing an impressing array of own designs and brands, covering every facet of Taiwan's industry including Desktop Systems, Wireless LAN, Notebooks, Software, Board-Level Products, Input Devices, Digital Cameras, Storage Devices, Servers, Components, IC Design, Peripherals, Communications, Accessories, Network Computing, Imaging Systems, and Displays.

When a BBC reporter recently queried if there were a special "focus" for the show, the organizers replied that each year the focus changes since the entire word of ICT also changes rapidly.

While it is no longer new that Taiwan is the world's biggest supplier of notebook computers, this year the show featured several emerging product areas like more sophisticated flat-panel displays, where Taiwan is also becoming the world's largest manufacturer. "Going flat" is the wave of the future and flat panel displays now seem to replace, more rapidly than expected only a year ago, clunky CRT monitors and establishing themselves as the display technology of choice, in computing and home entertainment alike.

The Storage Equipment Area, located in the main hall of the TWTC mirrored further changes in industrial trends. MP3 players, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs, DVD recorders, RAIDs, flash memory cards, e-books, and card readers were displayed in dazzling varieties by heavyweight manufacturers such as RiTEK, CMC and Nany Technology among nearly 90 other companies.

For the first time, the organizers adopted the proven concept of "Theme Pavilions", highlighting the latest breakthroughs in security, IP telecom and IP TV, e-life, automotive electronics, Linux open source software, and the newest vogue, Digital Home Appliances.

The Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) was not only the venue of seminars and forums (like the " COMPUTEX Summit - View, Trend and Future IT Industry 2004", or "Asian New Starts: India and China" ) but also housed the overspill of special exhibitors that could not be accommodated in the exhibition halls: Intel AMD, National Semiconductor, Transmeta, Broadcom, Philips, TI, Mitac, and Tatung, with additional presentations of smaller, start-up companies who are still in the process of making a name for themselves and establishing a client base.