You may be familiar with Asus for its motherboards, graphics cards and a whole host of other peripherals but not particularly for its barebone systems, and even less for entire PCs. Apparently the market that was so in favour of barebones back a few years ago is now far smaller, and Asus believes that it can brand and
sell entire PCs, containing its own components.
Sure, Asus makes some great kit and was even seen expanding out into more CE (consumer electronic) devices (like TVs) back at Computex, but can it make PCs that will attract the consumer? The
Commodore PC we reviewed recently was hit and miss in the looks department, sporting a nice finish but very boring case underneath. If Asus can make something a little special like Dell, Alienware and Vadim offer, for example, then perhaps they will be worth a real look in.
"Asustek decided to quit the barebone market in Taiwan due to a continuously shrinking market scale. Asustek currently is offering own-brand desktop PCs in Taiwan and the company will start to offer such products in overseas markets after the company completes the spin-off of its own-brand and OEM businesses, noted the sources. Asustek will separate its own-brand and OEM business in January of 2008."
The separation of OEM and own-brand businesses allows Asus to not annoy companies that buy its kit and sell it in their own PCs, while Asus will be directly competing them, and probably undercutting them as it has a start-to-finish manufacturing process. It will be interesting to see if Asus brings out a Republic of Gamers branded PC for the gaming market, with RoG motherboard and possibly graphics, sound card and case.
Are you interested in an Asus PC, or do you think it should stick to its popular notebook range, as going mobile is the future? Let us know your thoughts
in the forums.
Want to comment? Please log in.