Asus EeePC spurs competition

THE spectacular sales success of the tiny, low-cost Eee PC notebook from Asus has prompted the sincerest form of flattery from its competitors – imitation.

Research group Gartner says rival companies are already developing products that compete with Eee PC at the low-cost end of the market.

Asus launched the Eee PC in Australia less than a month ago. Selling through Myer as exclusive retailer, the product has already sold out. It is the same in other markets like the US and UK.

The appeal of the Eee PC is that it is small (less than a kilo) and cheap (less than $500). But Gartner says in its Semiconductor DQ Monday Report this week that the Eee PC has attracted the attention of vendors who want to produce low-cost notebooks with better functionality – and steal Asus’ market.

Gartner said China’s Hasee Computer plans to launch a low-cost notebook soon, with a bigger display than the Eee PC, a more powerful processor and more storage.

The Hasee Q540X notebook will run an Intel Celeron 540 processor, an 80Gb hard drive, weighing 2.2 kilos and priced at about US$400 (A$450) .

The Eee PC has built in wireless connectivity and uses the Linux open source operating system.

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IBM lodges Asus patent complaint

IBM wants the US government to ban the imports of Taiwanese OEM manufacturing giant Asustek, claiming the company infringes IBM patents in a broad variety of its tech products.

Asustek, which is best known for manufacturing PCs, notebooks and other products on behalf of big brand companies, has in recent years established it own ASUS brand in a growing number of international markets.

IBM claims it has made “repeated attempts” to reach licensing agreements with Asustek and its subsidiary in the US, ASUS Computer International.

Big Blue has now filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission outlining three specific breaches concerning patents covering power supply, automatic fan speed control, and computer clustering.

“The infringing Asustek computer products include notebook computers, so-called barebones computer systems, servers, routers and various computer components,” IBM said in a statement.

The US International Trade Commission is an independent federal agency that has the authority to ban the importation of products found to infringe the patents of US companies.

Asustek, which builds products on behalf of companies like Dell and Hewlett Packard, has denied the allegations.

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