ASUS announces plans to split company and brand
ARS Technica
By Joel Hruska | Published: July 03, 2007 - 10:59AM CT

AsusTek Computer Inc. (known to most motherboard enthusiasts simply as ASUS), has announced its intention to split into three separate corporate holdings in order to maximize competitive performance and minimize potential conflicts of interest. As things currently stand, it's possible for a company that competes with the AsusTek brand to actually contract with AsusTek to build equipment, and several customers have expressed unhappiness over this arrangement. Asus' branded business will retain the Asus name, the PC-related manufacturing segment will be known as Unihan Technology Corp., and the casing, module, and non-PC contract manufacturing segment will be named Pegatron Technology Corp.

This type of dramatic spinoff is not without precedent: Acer Inc., was originally a single, unified company that spun segments of itself off into a contract manufacturing arm (Wistron) and a mobile phone and monitor business (BenQ). Although investors were originally worried that Wistron might fail to compete effectively for Acer orders, the company has since captured business from Microsoft's Xbox 360. Asustek's coming spinoff is also well-positioned; Sony currently taps Asustek for the PlayStation 3... More

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