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Tim Culpan

This year's Computex trade show in Taipei appears to have revived optimism in the worldwide information technology sector, with buyers and vendors upbeat about next year.
The show also saw renewed battles between the IT industry's biggest names as rivals tried to blunt each other's product advances.
Data  from  show organisers suggest that attendance rose  almost 30 per cent from last year, with exhibitor numbers up 12 per cent.
Those results also show  that the  Sars outbreak,  which delayed the event  from its usual June schedule, did little to dampen interest. 
Some exhibitors suggested that the strong turnout was the result of the postponement.
'There's a feeling  exhibitors are quite satisfied with the number of buyers, and some are even surprised with  the number of visitors that have arrived,'  said Jeffrey Hong, a spokesman for Computex co-organiser the China External Trade Development Council  in Taiwan.
Certainly the mood in the Taiwan IT industry is much more buoyant than  it was three months ago, helped by strong forecasts from key market players. Large chipmakers led by Intel Corp, Texas Instruments and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) have raised sales forecasts in the past six weeks.
'I think it is fair to say that there is a consensus that we are in an economic recovery,' said Texas Instruments chairman and chief executive Tom Engibous.
He  believed the excitement generated among exhibitors at Computex this year came from  fresh, positive market sentiment, and was not  merely a rebound in the economic cycle.
 'If I recall, Computex was a PC show and nothing else. But today you can tell  that it's more of a communications show than a computer show,' he said.
This sentiment was evident  on the  exhibition floor, with vendors putting plenty of emphasis on their communications products. 
Taiwan-based personal computer maker MiTAC International  last week launched its latest smartphone, the Mio8390. This closely follows  the Mio8380, which MiTAC launched in June to push its consumer electronics strategy.
Using  Microsoft's smartphone operating system, the new MiTAC flip-phone also served as another salvo in the brewing war between the handset operating systems of Microsoft and the Symbian group.
Handsets have also become the new battleground among chip companies, with Intel moving aggressively into a silicon market segment that has long been led by companies such as Motorola and Texas Instruments.
Despite the launch last week of the Athlon64 processor from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), few vendors and buyers at Computex this year seemed to care much for raw computing power.
VIA Technologies, a small  player in the computer microprocessor market dominated by Intel and AMD, continued  its 'get connected' theme this year with  new products. 
Although it showed a new processor, VIA wants  to sell  total platforms - including processors, chipsets and software - to its customers.
 Strong product expansion in  the past few years has seen VIA offering graphics, audio and communications chipsets.
'The PC industry is moving into a new phase,' said Richard Brown, associate vice-president of marketing at VIA.
He said future  products  would focus on wireless communications and integrated chip design. 
As Computex exhibitors showed last week,  a design renaissance has emerged in  personal computers.  
Leading the charge last week was a company called Shuttle, which introduced its 'micro form-factor'' XPC product.
 Other vendors also adopting this concept  included Iwill Corp, which featured a small, chrome Art Nouveau case, and  MicroStar International,  which dressed up its PC to look like a  Japanese-inspired stereo. 
'One  reason the PC market slowed down was because there were  no new ideas,' Mr Brown said. 
This year there seemed to be enough ideas to power another boom in the IT sector, he said.



Computex stokes cheery sentiment in IT sector