Abit May Be Exiting The Motherboard Business

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 07:19 PM EDT

If a story posted at DigiTimes today is true, Abit could possibly be exiting the motherboard business sometime soon.

"Second-tier motherboard maker Abit is reportedly considering phasing out of the motherboard market after evaluating its shipment performance of Intel 4 series motherboards, according to channel sources.

Abit, however, maintains it does not know anything about the speculation and will continue to develop motherboard products.

Abit's has failed to meet the expectations of parent company Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) in its ability to compete with fellow second-tier makers in terms of performance, or first-tier makers in terms of pricing in the mid-range and entry-level market, and so the company is evaluating whether to quit the market and start developing other products for the Abit brand, noted the sources.

In 2007, Abit shipped 2-3 million motherboards and had set a goal to ship six million units in 2008. However, the company's current shipments have actually decreased. Abit will determine whether to stay in the market after evaluating its shipments performance of P45-based motherboards, added the sources."

Since being bailed out by USI, Abit has had some success and has produced quite a few quality products. The company's focus on the enthusiast segment, which used to be their bread and butter, however, has noticably waned. In fact, the majority of news we have received from Abit as of late has pertained to entry level and HTPC products and not the highly-overclockable, enthusiast class products that put the company on the map.

Tags: Motherboard, Business, bus, Abit, board, NES, ting, BU, AR

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com