4 ms·
"In 2007, Apple significantly dialed down its MacBook manufacturing business with Asus and the company had to respond. That same year, they announced that they
by thevagrant 3y ago
"In 2007, Apple significantly dialed down its MacBook manufacturing business with Asus and the company had to respond. That same year, they announced that they would hive off their original design manufacturing business into a 100% owned subsidiary called Pegatron. Management hoped this would reassure their customers that improper information cannot be shared across lines.
But the conflicts of interest persisted. And even got worse when Asus released its hit Eee laptop product. The first so-called netbook, the low-end PC sold 5 million units at the start and presented a real threat to Pegatron's customers. They were eating in other companies' market share. "
https://asianometry.substack.com/p/asus-explained-a-rare-taiwanese-global https://asianometry.substack.com/p/asus-explained-a-rare-tai...
- pdimitar 3y agoArticle is a bit big -- I'll read it but in the meantime, what did Apple do exactly? They "dialed down its MacBook manufacturing business with Asus"? What does that mean? Asus would have been their hardware supplier, or?
- thevagrant 3y agoAsus made products for Apple and others. An example from memory is the sleek plastic Apple macbook (white and black) from 2006 was made by Asus. At the same time, Asus were making laptops under their own brand which showed a lot of potential e.g Asus W7J which had magnesium body. The idea was Asus could use knowledge they obtained making products for others to make their own products. Not only that, the Asus brand was becoming more known, the risk was the consumer might buy Asus products (they made quality products for those other big brands right? Why not go direct). Apple was rumored to pull back from using Asus as a manufacturing partner for this reason.
- pdimitar 3y agoOh I see. So Apple wanted ASUS to only produce laptops for them. Nasty but also not surprising, sadly.