ASUS

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. () is a Taiwan-based company that produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, notebook computers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, and computer cooling systems. Commonly called by their brand name ASUS (pronounced or ) it is listed on London Stock Exchange and Taiwan Stock Exchange.

History

Origin of the name

ASUS was founded in 1989 in Taiwan by TH Tung, Ted Hsu, Wayne Hsieh and MT Liao. Then Jonney Shih joined ASUS in 1994. According to the ASUS sales manager Alexander Kim Russian-language interview with Alexander Kim, October 2003) the name ASUS originated from Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, seen as symbol of success and revival. The first three letters were dropped to give the resulting name a high position in alphabetical listings, then the company name was completed to "ASUSTeK Computers Incorporated".

In 2004, ASUS was reported to sell more motherboards than three other leading companies combined, "First-tier motherboard shipments increase 4.9% in October", Digitimes, 11 November 2004 reaching 30 million. This number, however, includes rebranding contracts.

In 2005, shipments from ASUS, ECS, Gigabyte, and MSI totaled 104.86 million units. ASUS led with about 52 million units, followed by ECS with 20 million, MSI with 18 million and Gigabyte with 16.5 million. MSI revised its motherboard shipments from an estimate of 16.7 million units to 18 million, according to the company.

ASUS also produces components for other corporations, including Sony (PlayStation 2), Apple Computer (iPod, iPod Shuffle, MacBook), Alienware, Falcon Northwest, HP and Compaq.

Timeline

September/October 2003: debuts in the cellphone market with the J100 model.J100 Phone from ASUS
September 2005: realizes their first PhysX accelerator cardASUS PhysX Card Ready (currently expected in May 2006)Asus PhysX boards coming in May
December 2005: enters the LCD TV market with the TLW32001 model, initially only available on the Taiwan market.ASUS enters LCD TV market with TLW32001 32" LCD TV
March 9 2006: ASUS is announced to be one of the producers of the first Microsoft Origami models, together with Samsung and Founder. Samsung and ASUS devices expected by April 2006.Microsoft Unfolds Origami at the 2006 CeBIT expo

Manufacturing facilities

As of January 2006, ASUS has manufacturing facilities in Taiwan (Taipei, Luchu, Nankan, Kweishan) and in mainland China (Suzhou), with a monthly production capacity of two million motherboards and 150,000 notebook computers (Source: ASUS official site)

Product categories

In alphabetical order:

ASUS has introduced a number of original features and tools that complemented its products, especially motherboards. The table below lists them, together with some third-party technologies, rebranded under ASUS-specific names (note: the acronym AI, which prefixes many of the feature names, stands for Artificial Intelligence).

Name	Year of Introduction	Product	Description	Patented
AI NET2	YYYY	Motherboards	Diagnoses LAN connection problems before starting the OS
AI NOS	YYYY	Motherboards	Non-delay Overclocking System. A dynamic overclocking technology	Yes
AI Proactive	YYYY	Motherboards
AI Quiet	YYYY	Motherboards	Controls speed of fan and processor for a more quiet operation.
Audio DJ	YYYY	Motherboards and notebooks	Allows playing Audio CDs without turning the computer on. Notebooks supporting this feature normally have play/pause, stop and other control buttons on the front, where they are accessible even when the notebook is closed.
BIOS EZ Flash	YYYY	Motherboards	Allows to update the BIOS through a non-boot floppy which just contains the new BIOS image. Built-in with the BIOS firmware and can be accessed by pressing ALT+F2 during the power-on self-test
C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall)	YYYY	Motherboards	Automatically restores default CPU settings at reboot when the system fails due to overclocking.
ASUS CrashFree BIOS2	YYYY	Motherboards	If the BIOS becomes corrupted, CrashFree BIOS 2 allows the user to perform a recovery using the motherboard support CD.
Color Shine (or Colour Shine), Crystal Shine	YYYY	Laptop LCDs	ASUS marketing names for the anti-reflective LCD technology.
GameFace Live	2004?	Graphics Cards	A multi-player audio and video chat solution allowing online gamers to see and talk each other while playing. As of 2006, it is limited to DirectX games and allows up to eight simultaneous players.
GameLiveShow	YYYY	Graphics Cards	Allows gamers to broadcast

References

External links

Official Site
The Top 100 information technology companies of 2005 according to BusinessWeek
Linux on Asus Laptops (user experiences)

Motherboard | Electronics companies | Computer hardware companies | Electronics companies of Taiwan