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China to Be Laptop Leader

prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."

10 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Laptops.. ehh by ThoreauHD · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm more concerned about the missle manufacturers producing parts over there. The DOD seems to have lost their fortitude when it comes to executing people for treason. Perhaps that will change before they nuke us for interfering with Taiwan.

    I think laptops fall into the category of toilet paper and rice balls. Who gives a shit. Nobody's gonna die cause your crappy Dell can't run WinblowZ 2010.

  2. Re:"Laptop Leader"?? by siddhartha03 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    More competition for very low paying jobs puts the people in general at a disadvantage. Who will care that you are sick and can't work if 2 million other people can fill your place and are EAGER to do so?

    --
    Sock puppets stole my sig.
  3. Re:hmmm by hype7 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Not to troll, but I think that a lot of laptops that will come out of china will suck, just like a lot of the other toys and electronics that come out of China. On the other hand, it probably would drive the price down enough for me to afford one in addition to my desktop. Personally, I won't be getting one of these laptops from China because I am a mac freak and never want to use any OS other than Mac OS X ever again.


    This is what people used to say about Taiwan, and before Taiwan, Japan.

    Now, Taiwan is responsible for producing a number of Apple's computers. They also supply memory to computer manufacturers all over the world.

    Japan started out life by creating second-rate consumer goods like watches and cameras. While their watches haven't improved that much (j/k), Nikon et al produce some of the best cameras you can buy. Not that it was always like that. And what about Honda/Toyota, etc? When they first came out, those were the cars you bought when you'd just been declared bankrupt. Now, they're some of the most reliable cars you can buy; Japan pushed the just-in-time production model and numerous other innovations, and their automotive industry is one of the most vibrant in the world.

    And so it will be with China. So while now you might say how crap they are, there's a US $100bn per year trade deficit between the US and China in China's favour (I think that figure is correct), and all that money will continue to go towards making China the new Japan.

    -- james
  4. The problem with Taiwanese business man by BurningTyger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China
    >might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants
    >will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though.
    >Taiwan is current #1.

    The problem with business man in general is that they drift where the money is, and care less about the impact to their own country (if they even consider Taiwan to be a country in the first place, regardless if they were born there).

    The impact to the shift of labtop industry from Taiwan to China (by Taiwanese company) are two folds.

    First, China gains a competitive edge to the industry, and to the overall economy of China and can later be used to bargain against Taiwan. (Heck, China already is using the new found money from its booming economy to buy 3rd world nations' support against Taiwan)

    Second, Taiwan loses leadership in the industry, the economy suffers, unemplyeement rate increases due to the moving of manufacturing plants to China.

    Most Taiwanese people still fail to realize that China is still a hostile nation towards Taiwan. And China still threaten to invade or bomb Taiwan if Taiwan refused to reunite with China.

    God.. I mean... can you imagine American business man supporting Iraq so that Iraq has more money to build missles to aim at US ??

  5. Re:Interesting... by appleLaserWriter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    China has set a goal to be a world leader in semiconductor manufacture and a competitive force in software development in the next few years. I'm sure there will be more news to come.

    Language is a major roadblock for Chinese IT. Either you have to learn english or use a cumbersome encoding system to work in Mandarin. This will work as a slowing factor in software development and motivate research into new data entry methods.

  6. Re:hmmm by Malcontent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Wages will go up, and quality of goods will go up - and with it, the prices of the goods. A hole will open for another poor country to start producing the "cheap junk"."

    Once the companies leave then a bust cycle will begin. There will be a prolonged period of unemployment and depression/recession. Eventually the standard of living will be pretty much where it was before. Maybe once the cambodians (or wherever the jobs went) get uppidy and demand more money the jobs might come back but more likely they will migrate to africa or someplace even more destitute.

    Eventually some country will imprison a sizable minority of it's people and offer their labor for cheap to companies. This form of legalized slavery will start another chain reaction and before long a sizable chunk of the humans on this planet will be imprisoned and enslaved. People will be jailed for having one to two marijuana seeds for ten years and in prison they will work for AT&T making telemarketing calls.

    Oh wait a minute that's already happening right here in the USA.
    http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispat ch/200 1-11-23/pols_naked3.html
    http://www.prisontalk.co m/forums/archive/topic/115 05.html
    http://kcd.com/goa/issues/2000/q1/Jail.ht m

    I am sure these kinds of prison labor programs will be expanded hugely in the US and overseas. Imagine a couple of million slaves in china, US or africa manufacturing toys or sneakers for next to nothing. Of course the US prisons will have to degrade to the level of chinese or african prisons to compete.

    --

    War is necrophilia.

  7. Visit and see.... by djupedal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...jobs, jobs, and more jobs. I'm leaving South Korea to work in China soon, and I couldn't be happier.

    Tech is just one part, but business is booming, and now is the time to get in.

  8. How low can you go? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems to me like the Taiwanese have moved their production to China where labour is cheaper. Similar to how companies that moved their call centres and programming teams to India are now looking for even cheaper places.

    What bugs me is that I'm an unemployed programmer, and I can't compete with people who consider 4000/year a good wage. Plus, anyone who employs me needs to pay tax, social security and contribute to my pension.

    Where will it end? Is someone gonna code for food?

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. Mandarin input is faster. by Analogue+Kid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Apparently you know very little about Mandarin, or it's input. For Japanese input, there is a big speed penalty. But Chinese input is faster.

    Most people in Taiwan use either bpmf input or canjie. Most people in mainland China use either pinyin or canjie. Bpmf and pinyin are phonetic input methods which are approximately the same speed as English. Canjie input is based upon the structure of a character instead, and is MUCH faster than English input. I can type over 200 words per minute with canjie, and many professional typists can type at over 300.

    There is no "slowing factor" in typing Mandarin. In fact, I would argue that by lacking a meaning based orthographic system, that English is a "slowing factor".

    China will own IT.

    --
    I'm a gnu world man.
  10. Re:hmmm by chenyu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Another person that doesn't understand China.

    Nepotism and lack of transparency are not as big of problems as you think they are. If you are a Western company doing business in China, you will most likely find the brother-in-law of the Politiburo, put him on your board of directors, and pay him enough so that he doesn't mess things up for you. It doesn't cost that much more than a good lawyer would, and if brother in law of Politburo one demands too much, you can always drop him and go to nephew of Politburo two. (I'm oversimplifying. In most cases, you probably don't want a nephew of a Politburo member. The nephew of the county administrator would be more useful, but you get the idea.)

    China is not Communist in any meaningful sense of the word. About 20 years ago, the Chinese leadership figured out that Communism doesn't work, so they junked that system.