USB, memory products dominate Computex

The 29th year of Computex, one of the world's largest ICT exhibitions came to
a close on June 6, 2009. The five day event that was held from June 2 to 6, 2009
saw no major impact of the global recession, with only 25 companies doing a
no-show. Nearly 1,700 exhibitors showcased their products in 4,498 booths as
compared to 1,725 exhibitors in 2008, with Kingston and Foxconn being among the
companies that gave the event a miss. During its first four days, the show
welcomed 32,178 international buyers from 214 countries and more than one lakh
international and local visitors. The top five countries of international buyers
were from US, Japan, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Korea, with Australia joining
the top 10 this year.

This year's show included a wide range of product categories such as computer
systems, components, data storage devices, software, peripherals, display and
digital entertainment products, mobile Internet, WiMax, green technology and
netbooks.

In his address during the opening ceremony of Computex 2009, Chih-Kang Wang,
Chairman, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), said that the
global competitiveness of Taiwan's IT industry has climbed to the number two
position in the world. “According to estimates by Institute for Information
Industry (III) in 2008, the overall output of Taiwan's IT hardware industry for
both home and abroad is $110.271 billion, representing a 4.6 percent growth over
2007. However, with the financial turmoil that began in the second half of 2008,
the electronics industry has suffered the most obvious impact. The total revenue
of the global ICT industry will shrink by 2.3 percent and the results have been
reflected in many ICT-related international exhibitions. However, Computex 2009
is endeavoring to maintain the scale of the exhibition amidst this economic
downturn.”

In his opening address, JT Wang, Chairman, Taipei Computer Association said
that the main theme of Computex 2009 has changed from 'Compuetx catch the WiMax'
to 'WiMax on the Move,' symbolizing the launch of commercial WiMax operations in
Taiwan.

Generating business

The highlight of Computex has always been the procurement meetings arranged
by TAITRA. This year, TAITRA arranged more than 2,000 individual procurement
meetings during the three days. These meetings generated on-site business worth
a projected $100 million and are expected to create $700 million in follow-up
business. According to TAITRA sources, this year, the three-day affair attracted
256 overseas companies from 42 countries.

Nearly 1,700 exhibitors showcased their products in 4,498 booths

Many firms represented emerging markets such as Turkey, Argentina, Russia,
India and the UAE. Most buyers showed great interest in notebooks, netbooks,
GPS, LCD monitors, PoS, etc.

USB and memory

USB flash drives, memory cards, SSDs and DRAM were among the major
attractions in the expo and nearly 20 percent of the exhibitors were showcasing
their products in this space. The exhibitors stole the show with their
innovative designs. Among them were companies like A-Data, Apacer, Kingmax,
Patriot, OCZ and PNY. A-Data won the Taiwan Excellence Pavilion Award for its
S805 USB flash drive, X series cooling solutions and Turbo Series CF 350X SD
card.

CEO Summit Forum

This year's Computex Taipei CEO Summit Forum enjoyed the presence of
high-ranking executives from Asus, ARM, Google, HP and TI as keynote speakers
and panelists. The theme of the year was “Mobile Technologies for a Green
World.” The forum also had numerous high-ranking officials share their new
ideas. Nearly 7,000 people participated in 90 forum sessions

Microsoft forum featured a keynote speech entitled 'Windows Makes Life
Simpler' by Steven Guggenheimer, Corporate VP-Original Equipment Manufacturer
(OEM) Division. The forum attracted nearly 3,300 attendees. There was also the
'Future Now' presentation at e21forum 2009 led by Sean Maloney, Executive
VP-Sales and Marketing, Intel, and green technology panel discussion to share
green business strategies with Taiwan enterprises.

DRAMeXchange Compuforum 2009 'Survival Battle-Process Migration and
Performance' discussed hot topics surrounding DRAM, NAND Flash and SSD
industries and was joined by 250 leading memory makers, module manufacturers, PC
OEMs and financial analysts.

'Enabling the 3C World of Quadplay' was the theme for NGN Forum 2009. Nearly
660 people participated in the event discussing how in an all-IP network era,
fixed line, mobile, Internet and television have begun to carry out an
unprecedented large integration, leading us to whole new life experience,
multiple services and business models.

This year's Digitimes Computex Forum, held on June 3 2009, theme was Mobile
Technology and Design, bringing in the latest mobile market and technology. The
discussion on June 4 focused on industrial trends and application of digital
signage. In total, around 600 people participated in the show.

Green technologies

'Mobile Technologies for a Green World' was the theme of Computex Taipei CEO
Summit Forum. Lots of green products were showcased including CPU, HDD, PCB,
power supply, LED backlight and NB. Intel's Ultra-Low Voltage Intel Core 2 dual
core processor and 50 percent less power consumption HDD from Hitachi's EcoTrac
Travelstart5K500.B new range were some examples. The power savers introduced by
Compucase and Gigabyte as well as SSD by A-Data, Apacer, and Transcend were all
in line with the green concept.

New launches

There were several new launches and announcements that lit up Computex 2009.

Acer and Google teamed up to unveil the Android Notebook. The Aspire One
netbook featuring Android operating system offers users a faster connection to
the Internet, further enhancing efficiency on-the-go. The introduction of
Android into Acer netbooks presents customers with another choice of operating
system. In addition to Microsoft's operating system, a majority of Acer netbooks
will also offer Android in the future. Users may then select their preferred
choice of operating system. Acer believes the Android operating system will
contribute significantly to the worldwide netbook market growth. Android is a
free open source and fully customizable mobile platform. Its full stack offering
includes an operating system middleware, and key mobile applications. Third
party developers can customize and integrate Android applications. Acer plans to
launch its first Aspire one netbooks with Android in Q3 2009.

The long waited core i5 mainstream processors are on their way to desktops,
following the announcement made by Intel in Computex. Codenamed Lynnfield, they
are based on 45nm process technology, with four cores and hyper-threading. Like
Core i7, it will feature 8MB of shared L3 cache, but Core i5 will support
dual-channel RAM, rather than the triple-channel RAM that Core i7 supports. Core
i5 motherboards will include the Intel P55 Express Chipset, which Intel says is
designed for high performance and lower power and in combination with Core i5
delivers faster multi-tasking, digital media creation and gaming performance.

Already many motherboard manufacturers like Gigabyte, ECS and MSI to name a
few have made themselves ready for the launch of Intel's new chipset and
processor.

AMD also publicly demonstrated the world's first Microsoft DirectX 11
graphics processor. The fusion of AMD's new graphics processors with forthcoming
DirectX 11 programming interface is set to change both applications and PC
gaming for better. On the other hand, bringing its 45nm technology to new
high-volume processor designs, AMD announced two new dual core desktop
processors-AMD Athlon II X2 250 and AMD Phenom II X2 550.

There were few other important announcements like Microsoft announcing the
world wide adoption of Windows 7, Asus unveiling 11-inch EeePC Seashell, MSI
displaying its latest line of X-Slim series notebook and Nvidia unveiling seven
new high definition mobile Internet devices all based on Nvidia Tegra to name a
few.

First held in 1981, Computex Taipei will celebrate its 30th birthday in 2010.
For the past 29 years, Computex Taipei has transformed itself into not only the
world's leading ICT procurement platform, but also a perfect world stage for new
product and technology launches from home and abroad.