For five days the organizer of COMPUTEX TAIPEI had only one fear; that the dreaded swine flu would strike at and possibly shut down their event, the world's largest ICT procurement hub. But the only flu at this venue was a fervent fever for everything to do with ICT that established fresh records for the size, scale and turn-out.
While other IT shows around the world had cut back, the visitors in Taipei were astonished to discover COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2009 running at max capacity. In fact, even in the face of adverse market conditions, this show still managed to squeeze in growth by hosting 1,712 exhibitors who used 4,498 booths. During its first four days, the show welcomed 32,178 international buyers (+1 percent) from 214 countries and more than 100,000 international and local visitors (+5 percent). The top five countries for international buyers are from United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Korea with Australia new in the top 10 this year.
Convergence was the keyword. The venue continued to shine as the world's top ICT procurement center, but it has also become apparent that its increasing taking on the function as an information hub for numerous industries, including for those one doesn't immediately link to IT. It's here where everyone came from areas as diverse as medicine, automobiles, aerospace and education to create a multi-industry, multi-faceted venue that reflects the true diversity of the smart revolution.
The show's multi-cultural industry link was reflected with Acer teaming up with Google to unveil the Android Notebook. And it was here where AMD launched the world's first DirectX 11 graphics processor. Asus unveiled an 11in Eee PC Seashell. Intel introduced Core i7. Microsoft announced the wide adoption of Window 7. Mio demonstrated its Litepad series and MSI displayed its latest line of X-Slim Series Notebook. Meanwhile, Thermaltake launched its Level 10, the latest high-end gaming tower designed by BMW.
Netbooks grab the limelightNetbooks consolidated their status as the real show grabber especially since Taiwan serves up the perfect combo of computing and mobile Internet tech at affordable prices. Lightweight netbooks with their long battery life are now part of the next hi tech wave. And with Taiwan way out front in the netbook market, COMPUTEX TAIPEI is the natural venue for international tier-one companies to seek partnerships with local companies.
Companies have spared no effort pushing netbooks to perfection with the best in design and functions all embedded with core processors such as CPUs and GPUs. Numerous international big brands have introduced products for netbooks: Ion by Nvidia, the new Atom processors by Intel, and Snapdragon by Qualcomm. They team up with well-known companies from Taiwan such as Asus, HTC, Inventec, and Winstron to render the latest user-friendly Netbooks.
Green technologies on displayThe theme "Mobile Technologies for a Green World" of COMPUTEX TAIPEI CEO SUMMIT FORUM serves as a great warm-up for the green technologies and products at the show, including CPU, HDD, PCB, power supply, LED backlight and NB. Intel's Ultra-low Voltage Intel Core 2 dual core processor and the low power HDD from Hitachi's EcoTrac Travelstart5K500.B are some examples. The power savers introduced by Compucase and Gigabyte as well as SSD by A-Data, Apacer, and Transcend all reflect the green concept. Also, solar power products, fuel cells and LED applications are also going green. Vivitek's H9080FD Home Theater is the world's first LED Full HD Projector.
COMPUTEX TAIPEI
