ASUS

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Pronounced 'aa-Suess', it is a Taiwan-based company that produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, notebook computers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, and computer cooling systems. Commonly called by their brand name ASUS, it is listed on London Stock Exchange and Taiwan Stock Exchange.

ASUS was founded in 1989 in Taiwan by TH Tung, Ted Hsu, Wayne Hsieh and MT Liao - all four were computer engineers from Acer. The current CEO and Chairman of ASUS, Jonney Shih, joined the company in 1994.

According to the ASUS sales manager Alexander Kim the name ASUS originated from Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The first three letters of the word were dropped to give the resulting name a high position in alphabetical listings.

In 2004, ASUS was reported to sell more motherboards than three other leading companies combined, reaching 30 million. This number, however, includes rebranding contracts.

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In 2005, shipments from ASUS, ECS, Gigabyte, and MSI totalled 104.86 million units. ASUS led with about 52 million units, followed by ECS with 20 million, MSI with 18 million and Gigabyte with 16.6 million. MSI revised its motherboard shipments from an estimate of 16.7 million units to 18 million, according to the company.

ASUS also produces components for other corporations, including Sony (PlayStation 2), Apple Computer (iPod, iPod Shuffle, MacBook), Alienware, Falcon Northwest, HP and Compaq.

For the rest of the Wikipedia entry on the above term, go here.

This is the video of the Asus G1 is an interesting concept - a gaming laptop squeezed into a midsize case.