Asustek Computer has been aggressive about cloud computing and is set to launch its private cloud service for the National Taiwan University (NTU) in March, while Inventec, seeing its clients are aggressively competing in the technology service industry, expects the trend to help boost its shipment growth.
In addition to NTU, Asustek's private cloud solution has also received orders from a Taiwan-based bank. Asustek vice chairman Jonathan Tseng pointed out that the company has already been developing cloud computing solutions quietly for four years and will start surfacing in 2012.
Tseng pointed out that the company's cloud computing business will initially target large enterprises and users and it will launch private cloud solutions for small-to-medium enterprises in the second half. The company is especially optimistic about demand from the medical and education industries.
Inventec is currently the major server supplier of Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell with its server shipments in 2011 growing 30% on year. Although the production value growth for 2012 is expected to shrink, the company is still set to challenge revenues of NT$100 billion (US$3.38 billion).
Inventec chairman Richard Lee also pointed out that Taiwan players have a completive advantage in terms of hardware and the company will continue to strengthen its software services to raise product value. As a result, the company's demand for software engineers will increase. The company currently has about 800 employees in its server and cloud computing software teams.
Lee also noted that market watchers originally expected the PC industry would be significantly affected by the economic turmoil and hard drive shortages, causing a drop in server shipments; however, the server industry's performance in the first quarter of 2012 is seeing better performance than the fourth quarter of 2011, and is also expected to achieve 20% on-year growth in shipments.
As for the notebook ODM business, Lee pointed out that Inventec's notebook shipment volume in March is recovering, but due to clients starting the transition between the new and old notebook models in April, its shipments will turn weak.