There are quite a few companies who are admirable. And I’m reserving this for older companies which have weathered for years – rather than new companies which haven’t really faced adversity. You have to look at IBM for their right-angle turn into becoming a crusader for open source. Apple for making a turn away from irrelevancy and closure. I have high hopes for Yahoo! but there’s a lot of steps between where they are now and where they need to be tomorrow.
“We changed the concept,” says ASUSTeK Chief Executive Officer Jerry Shen in a Businessweek article.
…appointed Lee Kuo-kun, a professor from a local fine arts school, to be a consultant. The two meet every month at Shih’s office for coffee, green tea, and long discussions about aesthetics, philosophy, and technology. “All of life is art,” Lee explains.
I admire Asus. They’re one of the few ‘PC’ companies which seems to be working with the philosophy of making great products. Let me qualify this – I have an Asus eee PC 701 and I don’t like it. Most of my dislike is because the keyboard is too cramped and the touchpad/button feels a little cheap and, frankly, it doesn’t run the software I need from day to day. But that’s not to say it’s not a great product.
Mini-notebooks as opposed to Sub-notebooks seem to be the area where the market is going to take off. Why would you pay over a grand for a Lenovo when you can get what you need from an Asus for two hundred? I can understand a small sector of people who are still going to lust after and buy subnotes like the Air or the Lenovo Thinkpad X300 – but there’s a lot more potential for the Asus and competing products like the Everex Cloudbook, Acer Aspire One or the MSI Wind.
They’re clunky, they’re limited, they have holes and gaps but they’re cheap, they’re functional and their limited built-in storage really encourages you to back up to your USB stick or, better still, your server in the Cloud.
Asus released news on the Eee PC 903, 904 and 905 yesterday which look a lot better than the 701 that I have in a box somewhere.
It’s going to be an interesting space to watch (and I tend to pop along to Mike Cane’s blog for the news)
>>>and I tend to pop along to Mike Cane’s blog for the news
Thanks for the link, but I tend to pop over to Liliputing and LAPTOP Mag’s blog for the news! I’m not a news source. And once I’ve actually spent money and bought one, my posts about them will drop to near-zero.
Then…I will have no longer any use for you….
*punt*