Via’s Chen maps PC industry changes

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The blurring lines between consumer electronics and computing is changing the way that the PC industry works, according to Wenchi Chen, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Via Technologies Inc.

“What we are doing is not just technology anymore. What we are doing is more fun,” Chen said in a keynote speech Thursday on the sidelines of the Computex 2004 exhibition here in Taipei. “The products we are doing will be applications-based rather than in the past, where what we were doing was more computation-based.”

As the distinction between consumer electronics and computing devices shrinks, the x86 processor architecture used in most personal computers will be more important than ever before, Chen said, noting that the venerable processor architecture supports all of the existing digital media formats and provides a platform for the development of future formats.

But while the hardware industry can continue to rely upon the existing processor architecture, it must become less rigid, with more room for creativity and for companies to experiment with new types of devices developed for specialized applications built around digital media, he said.

“If the innovation is centralized, it’s controlled. We don’t think that will have a long life. That’s more like a master-slave mode, this is a kind of liberation,” Chen said.

“We believe content will play a bigger and bigger role,” Chen said, noting that there are growing opportunities for devices able to access on-demand services for communication, entertainment and education. There will also be an increased need for servers for both storage and computational applications, the Via CEO said.

“The key industry challenge for all of us is that we are moving from commoditization to customization,” Chen said.

Responding well to these opportunities will not be easy for the hardware industry, Chen said. Vendors must respond to demand for digital consumer electronics products by working together more closely and producing products that users will enjoy using, he said

“A big challenge for all of us is shorter product development cycles,” Chen said. “It’s our job to bring a faster and shorter product development cycle to the general market.”

“Closer cooperation between all of us is required to make this happen,” the CEO said.

One product that has been slow to reach end users because of lengthy product development cycles is Via’s own line of Nano-ITX (12 centimeters by 12 centimeters) motherboard, the EPIA-N. The Nano-ITX motherboards were announced by Chen at the Computex exhibition here in September 2003, but systems based on the motherboards have yet to reach the market nine months later.

“We need a faster product development cycle,” Chen said, speaking with IDG News Service after his keynote speech. “The adoption (of new products like the Nano-ITX) today still takes very long,”

“We have a lot of customers (who) like the Nano-ITX and they’re working on it … but it takes a long time for them to start shipping a product and bring it to market,” Chen said.

Part of the challenge for hardware makers is that the devices they are designing based on the Nano-ITX motherboards are different from traditional computers, and require Via to verify specialized aspects of each design, he said.

“We see a lot of innovation from a different angles and that makes it more difficult to bring a product to market,” Chen said, adding that the first Nano-ITX products should hit in the market within the next couple of months.

Computex runs through Saturday.