Abit closing?

[PeterStoba]

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showth...500#post434500

Doesn't look good

[Agent]

Its really not written very clear...

According to a post on the two websites, it is said that Universal abit is at it's end after it's axing staff from various departments.

Which two websites?

Axing staff to maintain a lean and mean team is necessary in many organisations. Such speculations that abit, well known manufacturer company coming to it's end is purely speculative and unprofessional.

Doesn't that imply they are not closing?

Companies should be careful who they allowed into their premises considering such stories might impact the company in a negative way.

[jclafi]

More news about ABIT.... Not really nice to read this...

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9878/u...aff/index.html

[Agent]

More news about ABIT.... Not really nice to read this...

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9878/u...aff/index.html

According to several sources both inside and outside Universal abit Motherboard Company; abit has laid off many staff from various departments within its HQ based in Taiwan. This follows a move from the previous HQ address in Nei-Hu to new premises in Nan-Gang to reduce expenses just last month.

Universal abit lays-off more staff

The beleaguered company has been down on its luck ever since the then CEO fiddled with the public companies stock prospects according to allegations. The subsequent investigation and resulting court cases have not yet been finalized, however, the abit brand was sold to Universal Scientific Industrial and the proceeds were used to level off some of the debt the public company had incurred.

Universal Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd. is a DMS/ODM/OEM manufacturer in 4C (Computing, Communications, Consumer Electronics and Car Electronics) industries, which means other companies employ them to design (in some cases) and manufacture for them. Brands they have dealings with include HP, Dell and ASUS, Since USI is part of ASE, one of the largest Semiconductor manufacturers in the world today, which was purported to be under consideration for a partnership with the Carlisle group not too long ago. One has to question what the purpose to buy abit was. However since they bought abit in a bid battle between several big players, rumoured to be ECS, Foxconn and Asus, most of the original abit support and admin staff were laid off. The marketing team remained, as did the PM team with all the key engineers needed to continue making high-end to mainstream motherboards. That was in early 2006.

As of the end of July 2008, most of the Research and Development team have been laid off, and between 3-4 people from almost every engineering department from Quality Control to Field Application Engineers too. Everyone from the previous PM team who designed the likes of the MAX and Fatal1ty series that many enthusiasts grew to love have all moved on over the last year. There doesn’t seem to be much left of what was once a prosperous and productive team well worth recognition. Some of those PM members went to Biostar, and others went to Foxconn. Both companies have seen a marked improvement in enthusiast level products recently, with abit’s offerings becoming more and more mediocre. The irony was that many times abit could not use USI resources as they charged too much, or did not have the Quality Control in place for the enthusiast sector. Pretty strange considering that USI is supposed to own abit and ideally help it’s underling to achieve better products with better results. The bottom line is that USI never understood the brand and never leveraged it as it could have. The abit GM who had stood firm and resolutely as he handed over control to the new masters eventually left for personal reasons, leaving a new person in charge who had no experience in the enthusiast sector. That person hailed from another semi-conductor firm, and has been applying those threadbare methods of lower margins, but higher volumes. While some would say these methods are slowly crippling the enthusiast aspect of the abit brand, the subsequent loss of faith in the abit brand by the public at large has resulted in warehouses being full and few if any buyers lining up.

Looking deeper at the USI acquisition of abit, one has to question in which direction are they headed? Recent shows and events such as CeBIT and Computex suggest the motherboard line-up was still pretty strong. I’m guessing the resulting orders have not been what were required and as such the lay-off stands to reason. Does this mean an end to abit? Or simply an end to the motherboard segment, while the company does a subtle shift to align itself more closely with what USI can make easily, namely: notebooks, UMPC’s and photo frames. Dare I ask if the photo frame can be overclocked?

Stupid page keeps redirecting me to a "Disable your adblocking software". Even though it is

[BUFF]

last time that Tweaktown posted something like this they were wrong.
Atm it's all rumours & nothing solid.

[d3fiant]

well this would be a big shame, I am a big fan of abit. That being said with markets as they are I would expect others to follow suite at some stage, face it things are going to get very tough as recession looms

[richieuk]

If they wanna save money, don't lay off staff, just stop giving fatal1ty money to use his retarded name for marketing, its abit we trust. Not a full-of-himself yank.

[CrazyMonkey]

If they wanna save money, don't lay off staff, just stop giving fatal1ty money to use his retarded name for marketing, its abit we trust. Not a full-of-himself yank.

Haha agreed

[Agent]

If they wanna save money, don't lay off staff, just stop giving fatal1ty money to use his retarded name for marketing, its abit we trust. Not a full-of-himself yank.

He's actually a very nice bloke.
It's just marketing, its no different to David Beckham having his name on something. If someone approached you and offered you money to have your name on a product, would you turn it down? I sure as hell wouldn't....

[jclafi]

You could save the money that you expend in the 'Fatal1ty' name (really useless) and hire some better tester´s to make sure that when you guys launch a new MotherBoard, she is totally Bug Free !

Wake Up, it´s time.

Regard´s

He's actually a very nice bloke.
It's just marketing, its no different to David Beckham having his name on something. If someone approached you and offered you money to have your name on a product, would you turn it down? I sure as hell wouldn't....

[Abit_NL]

Hi folks,

Well, it is true that some people left HQ. But I think it happens more often that companies have to evoluate and reorganize the company.

About spening money with Fatal1ty, the F-I90HD motherboard was the last motherboard with the Fatal1ty name and it looks like it will be the last one.

Fact is that abit is about the step into other markets, the Photo Frame Printer will be the first product of that, but there will be following more products. Simply because of the fact that the profit on motherboards is too little, these days it is impossible to live from motherboards only.

So abit is not stopping!!

[warlockza]

What is everyone on about?
If you read the article its about abit changing, not abit closing.

"Looking deeper at the USI acquisition of abit, one has to question in which direction are they headed? Recent shows and events such as CeBIT and Computex suggest the motherboard line-up was still pretty strong. I’m guessing the resulting orders have not been what were required and as such the lay-off stands to reason. Does this mean an end to abit? Or simply an end to the motherboard segment, while the company does a subtle shift to align itself more closely with what USI can make easily, namely: notebooks, UMPC’s and photo frames. Dare I ask if the photo frame can be overclocked?"

The last part suggests they will shift to USI products whatever they are.
So it's goodbye "abit Mobos" and hello "Printer/Photoframe UMPC thingies".

[Agent]

You could save the money that you expend in the 'Fatal1ty' name (really useless) and hire some better tester´s to make sure that when you guys launch a new MotherBoard, she is totally Bug Free !

Wake Up, it´s time.

Regard´s

I don't work for Abit you know....I was just putting forward my opinion.

[Blitzen]

Yet again...... get another post deleed for no apparent reason

[Blitzen]

Yet again...... get another post deleted for no apparent reason

[Agent]

Yet again...... get another post deleted for no apparent reason

As far as I can see - no posts in this thread have been deleted?