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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Shalmanese - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
"In any case, the factory itself does seem extremely considering all of the manual labor around. "seem extremely what?
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I am using an ECS board AMD XP 2400 CPU. Works well (no problem with Windows 98, XP, or Linux). Cheap too ~$67. I built another for mom and it works great too. ECS provides computer motherboards that are affordable and work great (very stable) and that's what most families of the world want/need.It's good to put people to work by buying ECS. Or else, they would starve because companies will move elsewhere (e.g., India) where labor is cheaper to cut costs (that's why motherboard factories moved from Taiwan to China in the first place).
It may not be perfect wages compared to the U.S. but I'm sure the workers over there appreciate it and the nice clean factories. Living costs are lower too over there.
In the U.S., workers complain too much and half ass too much that's why all companies are shipping the jobs overseas where people work harder, better, and complain less. Sucks for U.S. workers but tough luck for there laziness. Look at Ford and all american cars (sucks bigtime--100% breakdown within 1 year). I know none of you computer users would ever want americans to build motherboards or else all computers would breakdown in a few months and still cost a lot. And every year workers would play the stupid Strike game delaying products. No, no consumers wants lazy, clumsy, greedy game playing americans workers messing with our computer parts.
I would do the same (hire hardworking overseas workers) if I ran a corporation. Why pay premium wages to lazy half ass workers who complain all the time and threaten lawsuits and call in sick every month so they can watch a ball game and file fake workers comp claims which is typical of american workers?
BTW, I went to a post office where there were 4 asian clerk and 1 american clerk. The asian workers were polite and very very efficient and competant easily servicing 1 client a minute (max). The lazy, incompetant american worker took 10 minute per client and kept needing to ask questions from the supervisor. I think that anyone running a business if they saw this difference in work efficiency/competancy would only hire asians since they are most efficent and competant and result in best business profits (for shareholders) and lowest costs and best products for consumers.
I know lazy americans might get angry but if you think rationally, you know I am right and that's what most businessmen think.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Nice! I've always wondered where that crappy motherboard in my Grandma's eMachine came from.AgaBooga - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Its good to see the QA put into their parts, I wonder if any other motherboard vendors will read this article and improve if they aren't as good as ECS in terms of testing. If their parts go through this much testing, then why do people sometimes have to RMA a board like this?Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Forgot to tell about PC Chips history with fake cache on motherboards back in the 486-days...ECS is one of the companies that pay as little as they can to the workers.
Some of their series really have a RMA-problems... but they are cheap. The manufacture a lot for others -- some are good, others are typical ECS-quality.
Seems to me like a big "Thank you for the trip"-article....
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
After the fake cache scandal pc chips was involved with in the earily pentium motherboard days, i'd swore to never touch any of their products again. Be it ecs, amptron, alton, houston tech, etc etc etc.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
"I emailed Anand if we could get polo shirts with that motto on it, but I did not get a response."Anyone who appreciates irony has to be in hysterics over this line.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
if ECS went public 10 yrs after creation, why is it 1994 and not 1997 in the first paragraph?DAVIDS - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Very informative article. It's amazing that many of the workers get only $150/month. I sure hope their room and board is included.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
This is a great article that provides information that i cant find everywhere else.Good job Kristopher!
I never would have imagined that the bulk of the ECS workforce were women.