Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., September 21st 2003 - Kingston, one
of the world's top tier computer memory manufacturer interviewed ABIT's
Executive Vice President in their "Partner of the Month" feature. In the
interview Michael Chang talks about what has made ABIT such a compelling
choice over the years and what the future plans of ABIT are.
 Q:
ABIT has long been synonymous with having a high brand image, what makes
ABIT stand out from the competition?
A: ABIT has never limited itself to playing the role of a chipset kit
craftsman. ABIT was the first motherboard manufacturer to implement Jumper-less
Softmenu, the first to introduce a Dual Celeron motherboard and the first
to implement RAID on board. Try to name one innovation in motherboard
history without seeing ABIT's contribution! Added value, differentiation
and innovation are ABIT's core competitiveness, right? Everything is about
basics.
Q: Which market segment is ABIT's strength?
A: I would say DIY market in general, Gamers / Overclockers in particular.
The Gaming World is full of fun and imagination. Have you heard about
Quakecon? It is the largest LAN event in the US with more than 2,000 gamers
in attendance. AMD was running a case modification contest and oddly enough,
the champion of this mod contest put ABIT's IC7G MAX 2 Advance in a coffin!
At the same time, nVidia ran an overclocking test and ABIT NF7-S seized
the day again. The winners know perfectly that the engines are more important
than colorful packaging or fanciful accessories.
We think like the gamers, because we are the gamers. Built for Overclockers
by Overclockers is not just a slogan but also a fact. ABIT R&D engineers
are game enthusiast at heart. Our sales rep Chris just came back from
Comdex Brazil. During the show, ABIT offered an award to anybody who could
beat Chris. Nobody collected the prize through the end of the show.
Q: ABIT just released the 3rd Generation MAX board, could you
explain more about your MAX series?
A: The idea of MAX series is to maximize the features, maximize the capacity
and maximize the performance. Our IC7-G Max2 Advance was chosen as the
"2003 Dream Machine" by Maximum PC magazine. It is also "the"
board that Kingston used to validate their latest HyperX PC4000 memory.
It is definitely the fastest and the most tweakable Intel P4R motherboard
available in the market.
Since the introduction of IC7-G, it has been a controversial debate inside
ABIT for its successor - "Is it qualified to be our new MAX 3 flagship?"
Finally we concluded IC7-G should just be named as "MAX 2 Advance".
IC7 MAX 3, the 3rd generation MAX, is even more convincing, because we
maximize the Cooling and Security. IC7 MAX3 features OTES (Outside Thermal
Exhaust System) and Secure IDE (a hardware encryption device). With the
OTES, all the hot air around the chipset and the CPU socket will be exhausted
outside of the chassis, which dramatically improves the system's overall
performance. The Secure IDE is a device that connects to your IDE hard
disk and has a special decoder key; without this key, your hard disk will
be locked and cannot be accessed.
Early indications are showing that the IC7-MAX3 is the board to have.
HardOCP recently named this as "Must Have Hardware". This is
the first product in 2003 to win this award.
Q: What is ABIT's next focus?
A: ABIT's next focus is to increase its share in the system integrators
market.
In the past two years, due to the poor economic situation, I/T departments
of either government or school districts have purchased low cost solutions.
The all-in-one motherboard was adopted and well accepted in this market
and ABIT is well aware of this.
Q: We found out recently that ABIT released five "all-in-one"
models at once.
A: As a matter of fact, some models such as SG71 and NF7-M were re-launched.
Two popular all-in-one models: 845GL for Intel platform and VIA KM266
for AMD platform have reached their end of life cycles. ABIT covers the
full spectrum of next generation all-in-one solutions based on the most
popular chipsets like the Intel 865, SiS 651, VIA KM400 and nForce 2.
Q: What makes you think you can successfully return to the system
integration market?
A: Let me repeat, ABIT is no stranger to the system integration market.
What exactly do system integrators want? I will say "Affordable price
of reliable products with the best service".
Now we have full lines of products ready to go. We provide aggressive
program accompanied by best pricing. And one last thing- service, ABIT
set up the first industry standard to provide Boundary-less RMA service
to each member of the ABIT community (distributors, resellers, system
integrators, channel partners and end users). As you can see, system integrators
have long been included since we designed our eRMA system.
We even provide end users with cross shipment service to eliminate their
system down time. No down time is also a critical need for system integrators
to serve their customers.
Q: I heard about ABIT's eRMA system. Do you want to provide more
detail?
A: It is a Web based system. To better understand its capacity and user
friendliness, may I suggest you access and find out more by yourself?
You can simply click on the eRMA Service from ABIT-USA home page to start.
Enjoy the ride.
For the full article go here: http://www.valueram.com/whitebox/abitinterview.asp
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