Inside Elitegroup Computer Systems: From Taipei to Shen Zhen
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 4, 2003 12:39 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Getting down to the politics of the situation, the partnership between PC Chips and ECS is actually slightly complicated. For those of you who don’t quite know the situation between China and Taiwan, let us take a crash course in Chinese politics. China technically considers Taiwan as a “rogue state,” and thus, it does not allow Taiwanese citizens and companies the same rights as Chinese. The PC Chips CEO, Johnson Chiang, is a Taiwanese citizen and may not own Chinese factories, offices, etc. In the early 90’s, PC Chips became one of the first motherboard companies to spin off a motherboard production factory, which is actually its own company, in mainland China.
Edit: Joseph Yu, our tour guide for the ECS factory provided us with a few details we got wrong: Mr. Johnson Chiang became one of the major shareholders of ECS in 1998 while he was Chairman of PC CHIPS. But, this was Mr. Chiang's personal investment. In fact, Pou chen Group, the world's leading shoe maker who design & OEM for Nike, Rebook, and Adidas, is the biggest shareholder of ECS (13.56% in 2002). Precisely speaking, Mr. Chiang became Chairman of ECS in 1998, but did not take over ownership of ECS. Due to Mr. Chiang's relationship toward this two companies, ECS and PC CHIPS began their cooperation on manufacturing since then. From legal aspect, these two are still independent companies.
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Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
"Quote # 19"Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#17-Most people RMA products because they are ignorant fools who should be buying Dells.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Is it a misprint, or do 50% of the originally manufactured bare motherboards fail QA? If that's true, you think they could figure out what the single biggest problem there is, fix it, and drop the fail rate to 20% or something. Yeesh. This article makes it seem like a miracle that their motherboards even work at all.I was going to mention how terrible a job sticking SIMM/DIMM connectors onto motherboards, all day, every day, for $150 a month would be, but then I thought there are a lot worse ways these women could be forced to make money.
AgaBooga - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Any response to #7?Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#9 you ignorant slut...since it is impossible to get the truth about employment practices, manufacturing practices (although the article alludes to how others around ECS are polluting)or just about anything else in china your statements just show you to be an apologist for a corrupt and tyrannical system...
i can guarantee that there are no 'lazy' workers over there, a mistake or two on the line and you go back to the rice paddy and another slave takes your place - one hell of a motivator...
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
Nice article although ECS and it's affiliates still produce some of the worst motherboards I have ever used.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
A very interesting article.What is surprising is that it is not more mechanized and that there is so much (wo)manual labor involved!As far as the cost of labor is concerned.It may be likely that $150 is considered a good wage in ChinaAnonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
A very great article, I knew that ECS was a large company. But not that large and I did´nt know that they have had Matsonic and PC Chips.The article could have been much more with their mainboards and Notebooks Espacially about the QA, and production technics.
#6 ECS Produce ALOT of mainboards it is somewhat impossible to garantee a mainboard that is not defetive, or an entire shipment.
Here they article could give us some insight on what happens with RMA mainboards at ECS, this would defently provide some insight what a mainboard manufactor do with these mainboards.
#11, I agree with you.
#9, to the part of the postoffice, I can only say this. In the US the law require that a Coperate Employer also hire Minority Groups in giving %.
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#6, you're an idiot, stop posting.DAVIDS - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
#9, I think you're making a lot of over-generalizations about American workers. Lazy people can be found in every country. There are a lot of American workaholics who spend 50-60 hours/week on the job. Also, you seem to forget that many of the technological innovations found in computers were made by researchers here in the US. The microprocessor, random access memory, etc. are all American inventions.