Or at least Asus is pretending not to be worried...
In old Taipei late yesterday, our people had a chat with a local sourcing figure about the Intel Foxconn deal we wrote about yesterday.
Outwardly, Asus is not too concerned about the deal, and will not even acknowledge it exists, officially. But behind the brave facade, however, there are a few concerns though.
Yes, Asus' premier Republic Of Gamers (ROG) high-end gaming board division will never be affected by whoever makes those low end boards anyway, as Intel hasn't been doing much Skulltrail-type stuff.
But Asus' mainstream boards, which you don't usually see us raving about in our reviews but are bread and butter for its channel business worldwide, have direct competition from Intel motherboard entries.
Maybe Intel boards don't use solid caps or have energy saving widgets, but they've still got that big red Intel brand on them. Which, we have to say, is still stronger than the Asus brand.
Another large vendor here is very happy that there is possibly this "yin-yang" balancing act in the works, too.
Issue: 107 | December, 2009