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The Laptop Supply Chain
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "When a U.S. consumer orders a laptop from HP or other big sellers, how does the machine get made? Often via a complex supply chain in Taiwan and China, shaped by rocky cross-Strait relations, according to the Wall Street Journal: 'Outsourcing to low-cost, high-quality Taiwanese manufacturers has helped make Dell and H-P the world's top two PC companies in terms of sales...But the relationship between U.S. computer firms and their third-party manufacturers can be tricky. In the struggle to retain an element of control over their suppliers, H-P, Dell and others play contract manufacturers against each other to keep prices falling and ensure no supplier gains too much leverage.'"
I build my own. This way I can play, too.
is there a way an informed customer (e.g. me) could take advantage to get the best price?
For /.'ers .... What a supply chain is.
As a consumer, if you want your products nice and cheap, then these sorts of negotiations are par for the course. If they didn't do it, you'd take your money elsewhere.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
"... shaped by rocky cross-Strait relations"
Who knew that laptop technology was influenced so much by country music. And, why is he so cross anyhow?
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
In a few years, no one on continental America will know how to put a laptop together :-/ But they'll be great at tracking DHL/AirBorne and of course flipping burgers ;-)
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
means at least the saving are pass onto the consumer. Admittedly though, there are not a whole lot of choices when you buy a laptop. More often then not you will not be told where the laptop are made unless you can see the underside of it.
Since customer perfers price over quality in general, it is not really the companies fault to find the cheapest supplier.
From TFA:
So, IBM used to keep most of it's own laptop production in-house. Which may partially explain why the ThinkPad's are, by far, the best laptops around. Let's see what happens to the ThinkPad now that Lenovo runs the show.
"High Quality Manufacturers?" Seriously, has anyone ever used a HP laptop before... If hospital equipment functioned at the same "High Quality" that HP laptops do then we wouldn't have to worry about pulling the plug on our loved ones. The machines would work for two weeks, start getting really slow, the screen would break, and then it would fail and kill the patient.
I always worried about the effect that any Taiwan-China conflict could have on the supply of computers. It seems almost all motherboards are made in Taiwan and a whole lotta RAM.
Now, imagine what would happen to America's high tech industry if Communist China invaded...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
<insert any type of product here> manufacturers seek to produce their products at the lowest possible cost. They outsource to overseas contractors who in-turn outsource to even lower cost labor in the emerging manufacturing economies of Asia.
They don't. But I am sure Lenovo does somehow.
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
I don't know about anyone else, but I have a problem buying the cheaper Laptops.
I inevitabley run into hardware problems on the sub $1000 laptops.
I would rather pay a little more and not have the down time for my users. Strahd
In cases like the above, the channel leader can leverage CMs against one another to drive down price. That's your day-to-day negotiation strategy . Your choices become much more limited when you're not the company leveraging the supply chain. The customer isn't always right, sometimes it's the customer that has to grin and bear it.
I don't know how on-topic any of this is, but I'm tired and don't want to write my weekly status report.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
[1] Lionel Menchaca, a Dell spokesman, says the Round Rock, Texas, company obtains partly built laptops from contract manufacturers, but does final assembly at its own factories in Ireland, Malaysia or China, where microprocessors, software and other key components are added.
[2]When a customer in the U.S. clicks on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Web site to purchase one of its Pavilion zd8000 laptop computers, the order quickly arrives thousands of miles away at a factory in China run by a less-familiar name, Quanta Computer Inc.
Man, I think you got the wrong thread, or else you're the one who's smoking crack.
Where have you been the last 30 years?
I think you'll find that China could cripple pretty much all of the American economy should it choose to, and without bothering to invade Taiwan.
Deleted
Trust me, I deal with chinese and taiwan manufacturers of boards. Their idea of quality is "will it pass ougoing inspection?" NOT "Will it last more then 90 days".
I just dealt with a OEM that makes boards for themselves in China, and even there they refused to fix a problem because it would mean a loss of face.
It amazes me the truly poor work that is done here in China and abroad. I don't see this nearly as much in the US [although i do see it], and if anything is going to save our board manufacturers it may be this.
I wonder if there will ever be an "Organization of the Computer Exporting Countries" cartel?
The one who have the foresight to question build quality base on price are the minority.
of this story.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
about supply chain behind the article writer's dell notebook: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1464454,00.h tml
Well, I sure would hate to be the one who has to break it to the Blue Man Group to start thinking different or leave.
Further proof that Dubya's DHS is going to have to switch back to slide rules. At least they won't get hacked.
What I found interesting was the move to manufacturering the more expensive components in China - that is the next place to look for cost reductions. It'll take a while, but it will happen - leaving Tiawan to do higher end engineering and component fab, with the commodity stuff outsourced (much like we do today).
China's also developing the engineering talent to do the design work - Siemen's already does cell phone work their; China certainly has the talent to develop into a major player. Of course, political challenges - how do you keep such diverse country in one piece if you lessen the central control.
If I were India, I'd be worrying about the Chinese developing enough English speakers to capture the call center business.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Now, imagine what would happen to America's high tech industry if Communist China invaded...
I can also imagine what the US Pacific fleet would do to the PLANAF if it invaded. Now, if the Chinese Army could drive its tanks to Taiwan the country would have been history decades ago. As it is they still don't have the Naval strength. Taiwans high tech industry and its importance to US defense contractors and 'fabless' high thech firms might actually be its best guarantee of US support in the event of a 'skirmish' with China.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The big lads are doing it. There are lots of manufacturers, distributers etc in Taiwan and China who would love to sell more directly (to businesses, not consumers), they get a larger proportion of the cash and you get a cheaper product. It's what companies like alibaba are all about.
Deleted
Magic elves.
I'm more concerned about the lapdance supply chain.
- What happened to the PowerPC's supposed performance advantage over Intel?
- Is this all really about Digital Rights Management?
He then bangs on about Microsoft for a bit, as if Apple would ever be a threat to Microsoft, who have a whole new OS on the cards and have been running on these fabled Intel processor things for decades. I'll tell you the real reason: IBM have given Apple the cold shoulder. Look at it this way: Apple represents so little business for IBM that it doesn't make sense to keep developing new chips for them. IBM have their work cut out with the next gen consoles, and Apple is a teeny tiny spec compared to the massive quantity of chips IBM will have to produce to meet demand for these consoles.Absolutely nothing. The article , and it is unlikely that Apple will suffer greatly from this. They have other products such as their iPod and iTunes services to support themselves. Sure, sales will fall, but it's my prediction that AAPL will fall and then pick up as market analysts predict a rise in Apple sales in the next few months due to a new product release (Intel Macs). The Osborne Effect doesn't really hold water, Apple already have a development system available, and have already ported their OS. They have been planning this for five years. They do have a product to deliver, and they are very, very good at hype.
He's right on this one. No.
AMD aren't that interesting to Apple, they're already at maximum capacity as I mentioned, and they're quite happy producing chips for PCs. They also don't have the marketing clout of Intel and they're less well known. Apple chose Intel because they've been dumped by IBM, and Intel are more than happy to help Apple out because it secures them some more market penetration, which they need because they've made a considerable amount of blunders recently. Both are helping eachother out. It's simple symbiosis. If they didn't, their futures are unpredictable.
Intel could still have bought Apple as Cringely states, but I deem this to be highly unlikely. Intel is not in a good position to make acquisitions like this, and value their PC market a lot too.
Having our laptops and PCs made this way may seem great -- for as long as the Chinese keep funding our ever-increasing trade deficit by taking our declining dollars and purchasing our treasury bonds.
:-/
Dell and HP are at least keeping some design and marketing jobs in the US.
But if they follow the lead of many other American companies (e.g. GE), that design will be out-sourced overseas. American corporations are being destroyed by their own greed and shortsightedness. Many American companies are now only shells -- they're a brand name with a US-based sales and marketing force and everything else done overseas.
Fool yourself if you want, this is not a sustainable way of doing business. Consumers may think they've got it great now, with prices going down. But those same consumers are transferring wealth overseas and we're only able to do it now because the rest of the world allows the US to get into debt that no developing country could -- we can do it only because of the dollar's dominance.
Eventually that dollar dominance will evaporate and we'll realize that we transferred huge amounts of wealth and industrial power to foreign countries, all based on an ideology of greed and "free" trade.
Now, none of these are my own ideas; this is seen clearly by those on the political left and also by "traditional" conservatives. People like Reagan's Asst. Sec. of the Treasury and former Wall St. Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts have written extensively on this foolish but deliberate economic suicide. The mainstream corporate mass media avoids this -- it may upset people, cause them to question the conventional wisdom, or, worse in their view, impact their short-term profits.
Laugh and enjoy it while we can; things that can't go on forever don't.
Although I am not in the laptop manufacturing industry, the article is pretty much accurate.
My personal laptop is made by Quanta, and I bought it through Powernotebooks.com. (sorry for the plug).
When I was buying a laptop, I considered the brand-names, but I was disappointed by their selection in terms of parts and different models. I ended up buying from PN.com because I wanted to eliminate the 'middle man' (brand-name retailer).
I haven't had any major problems with my computer, just normal wear and tear from everyday use. The downside, of course, to buying from a smaller retailer, is the support. This is something to consider.
Also, as another poster pointed out, the chassis is one of the hardest laptop components to find. I know this firsthand; I wanted to build my own laptop. The reason for that is that the laptop is a computer in a small package; each model is designed so that everything fits as well as it does.
The motherboard is designed around the components in the laptop, and the chassis is designed to complement the mobo. It would be harder to do all of this by yourself, but I do wish that the chassis was available for the daring build-it-yourselfer.
I'm in the retail and wholesale business. You don't get what you pay for, and never have.
You get what you invest. Buying anything involves more than money up front. It involves research, building a relationship with a sales staff, building a relationship with a tech staff, and following through with what your original intentions were.
Most of my consulting customers who have problems could have easily have been fixed if they invested a tiny bit more time in researching what their short term needs are. Come on, we pay $100 a month for cable TV. $100 per month for a quality laptop (over its 2 year lifetime) isn't much.
Buying a machine today for web/office apps is easy. 6 months later hoping to run CAD or video editing or whatever is where you'll find you did not invest wisely. A little more time spent researching on your own or communicating with your VAR about long term intentions would save you months or years of frustrations.
In the end, though, buying direct from Dell gets you what you deserve.
Sometimes, with a little research its possible to buy even cheaper laptops that might not be branded HP or Dell but contain the same components inside, just sourced by a different laptop manufacturer. For example, BestBuy used to carry a store brand called (iirc) VPR Matrix. My friend bought one for around $700 when his $1500 Vaio (bought around 1 - 1 1/2 years earlier) started having problems. He was quite happy with the build quality, and of course with the price as well! As an added bonus, the outer case was a sleek design that got him asked several times if it was a PowerBook or iBook, this at a time (circa 2002) when most PC notebooks offered nothing but a black box with prominent manufacturer decals. Sadly, people are mostly lemmings who just want to buy known brands, and afaik BestBuy doesn't carry these laptops any more - else I would've definitely considered one when I went for a Toshiba S161 recently.
There is always S. Korea and Japan. But, I'm not sure how long it would take them to refab the factories to meet the global demand. On top of that, you still have to deal with new contracts being made between companies. Such a scenario could take at least a year or so to fully gain momentum...assuming the infrastructure is in place.
Life is not for the lazy.
Too many times with laptops I start with the specs I need then go shopping for someone who makes it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Given this supply chain there is therefore NO REASON why HP and Dell could not supply laptops with a blank hard drive so that the consumer can load their own OS. As the said laptop comes without an operating system (just a CDROM of drivers) it should therefore be cheaper.
Dell, HP, I'm waiting................
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
What's the story in this? This is business as usual....
While large manufacturers build machines on exclusive designs from resellers like Dell, IBM, HP, Sony, etc., many of these same manufacturers have thier own branded designs available through smaller resellers.
These manufacturer designs are cheaper because they are often sold unbranded. They also experience shorter timespans between hardware revisions because they don't have to wait for those exclusive design specs from resellers, and thus often have the latest components in their models months ahead of those from the major resellers.
ASUS, one of the largest manufacturers in Asia, supplies Apple with Powerbooks, iPod shuffle & minis, Sony with many of their laptops, and have been an on-and-off builder for IBM in the past (there was a report in March of ASUS in major talks with Lenovo to be their supplier in the future), among other famous names. This is one of the many well-kept secrets in the laptop industry.
ASUS has seen their own laptop line more than double in sales since last year, mainly due to word of mouth between computer enthusiasts venturing into the laptop market.
Major manufacturers who supply brand name resellers as well as popular specialty shops:
ASUS
Mitac
Uniwill
Clevo
Compal
Some resellers (VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Hypersonic, ABS, and Alienware among others) add some paint and a label (and, like good captalists, at least $500 to the pricetag) to these machines to come up with their own specialty models. Many other less visible resellers (MWave, Discountlaptops, ISTNC, Proportable, and others) sell the exact same machines unbranded in customizable barebone configurations for incredibly low prices.
As computer enthusiasts ditch their unwieldy desktops for portable solutions, we will find manufacturer brands becoming more and more visible to the general public, and large brands will have even more competition.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
This is rediculous. If countries shouldn't outsource, then states shouldn't outsource. And if states shouldn't outsource, then towns shouldn't outsource. And if towns shouldn't outsource then families shouldn't outsource. People who are against outsourcing end arguing against division of labor. In the end your argument boils down to: everyone should be subsistance farmers and build our own houses because we wouldn't want to outsource any labor to anyone else. Talk about economic suicide.
Division of labor (ie outsourcing) has been happening since the time of cave men, and will continue to happen as long as there are people. This is one thing that will definately go on forever.
That's because companies are only looking as far ahead as the next quarterly report, or maybe the next annual report. That's all the shareholders care about so that's all the companies care about.
China, Inc. and others are looking much farther down range. China is working on 50-year plans, which currently involve them taking over the world in many different areas of commerce if not military.
Shortsighted American and Japanese companies worried about short-term profit and loss can't compete against something willing to take losses for decades. Eventually the US companies die or get bought out by China on the cheap.
If there's ever a war between the US and China -and I think there will be one within the next 100 years- we're going to have a difficult time sourcing parts. China will be sure to ban trade with the US so nobody else will sell to us, and meanwhile the US will have totally gotten out of the R&D, chipfab and assembly business. Nobody will know how to make anything and it will take years to get going again.
Sig for hire.
I bought the Acer Travelmate 2312WLCi with the "Linux option" and the local distributor loaded Red Hat 9. I replaced that with Centos 4.
Anybody know?
American companies are now only shells -- they're a brand name with a US-based sales and marketing force and everything else done overseas. Fool yourself if you want, this is not a sustainable way of doing business.
Sure it is, as long as the companies are quick to begin marketing outside of the US and Europe as consumers here reduce their spending. The fact that the wealth has moved from one population to another doesn't really impact the multinationals, except to require them to shuffle the shells around. That's an advantage to having a layered, flexible corporate structure, actually.
Corporations aren't being shortsighted, because they'll be able to get their profits elsewhere when profitability declines here.
The result will be painful to the members of the declining economies, and very pleasant to the members of the increasing economies. The corporations will continue making money for their shareholders (who will increasingly be from the newly-wealthy nations).
There's nothing unsustainable about it.
What you meant to say is that it's not an approach that sustains the American economy and American jobs.
1. Find Cheap Slaves for Labor
2. Minimize Dividends
3. ???
4. Sell to Heartless Capitalistic Market
5. Profit !!!
'Outsourcing to low-cost, high-quality Taiwanese manufacturers has helped make Dell and H-P the world's top two PC companies in terms of sales
Wrong. Dell and HP only outsource about 1/5 of their stuff to Taiwan. 2/5 ends up in India, the other 2/5 is in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
" this is seen clearly by those on the political left and also by "traditional" conservatives"
So in other words 5% of our Congress? Because these days the castrated Democratic majority is too busy trying to copy what Republicans did to gain power, and the Republican majority is too busy implementing their un-American and hurtful NeoCon agenda. So that leaves like 5% of Congress to realize that the other 95% is totatlly fucking up our future? Great.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
[John Stewart voice mode engaged]
Damn you, KDE!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I use the Photoshop to read raw .cr2 files from my Canon 20D all the time. It was
Nikon that encrypted the white balance portion of their RAW format.
Eventually that dollar dominance will evaporate and we'll realize that we transferred huge amounts of wealth and industrial power to foreign countries, all based on an ideology of greed and "free" trade.
Yeah, let's seem them collect on that debt from the most powerful military force the planet has ever seen. Muhahahaha!!!!
The sad part is, I don't know if this should be moderated 'funny', 'insightful', 'troll'. Probably all three.
powerfulMilitary.requiresMoney == true
And I can legitimately argue that there is no middle ground and that outsourcing at the country level is the same thing as outsourcing at any other level.
In fact I can legitimately argue nuclear war is good for sunflowers.
I'd say that percentage is about right -- 5% sounds in the ballpark.
Of course, during election season that number will pop up to 25% or so, as rhetoric-filled speeches about jobs fly about like mosquitos in a Minnesota summer.
But you're right. Though the Democrats bleat about this a bit more than many Republicans, all in all both parties are bought and paid for by the corporations who are laughing all the way to the bank thanks to our "free" trade policies.
Alas, while battery CELLS are quite similar, the mechanical
packaging, connectors, and charging systems are dissimilar.
Many laptop batteries have their own charge controllers
built in, and Macintosh batteries have been known to
need reset procedures and firmware updates.
There aren't many success stories of third parties that
make competitive replacement batteries for laptops.
The design of a battery socket can be protected by patent,
and WILL be if the computer manufacturer thinks it will
make them a nickel. Batteries will become reliable enough
to last a lifetime before they will be allowed to become
generic, I suspect. No smiley.
You are trying to put two different things together.
Outsorcing happens due to the difference of incoming on different countries. It is simple, US people are richer, so their workers will want bigger salaries; the companies want to pay less, so they outsorce. This may happen on any rich country on the world, and the only way to avoid on the long run is to let the poor countries become rich (something that US try very hard to avoid, because of dunb geediness).
The US foreign debt is caused by the artificialy hight value of the dollar. Instead of letting the dollar flow decide its value, US people get loans. This way, people becomes rich on the short run, but have to pay interests and maintain a hight debt. This situation can lead to two different scenarios:
1: The US can slowly reduce the value of the dollar and pay most of the debit on the run. This is the good situation, the US people will become less rich, but US keep going.
2: The dollar's value continues high until people stop trusting it. This will lead to a major crisis on the worlds economy, with the US suffering more than anyone else.
Situation 1 is the desirable one, US is already working to make that happen. The only question is if it is working hard enogh, since the trust on the dollar's stability is already reducing all over the world.
Rethinking email
You don't know much about economics, do you?
First, the American military is impressing nobody. The swelled head bubble about the US being so militarily invincible has been popped by brave Iraqis defending their country with little more than assault rifles and light arms. The weakness of the US military is shining clear for all to see. While the US is dangerous, the world is no longer in awe.
Second, the US economy can also be easily popped. If China were to dump the 600-800 billion dollars its central bank holds into the international currency market, the US economy would implode and we'd be pushing around wheelbarrows full of currency to buy groceries just like they did in Weimar Germany. Sound extreme? Not if you read the mainstream economic journals. They all readily admit that such a move would quickly put the US into a deep economic depression.
Don't believe it? When, a few months ago, South Korea's central bank announced they were "diversifying" their currency holdings to lessen the amount of depreciating dollars they hold, Wall Street responded by dropping more than 200 points in 1 day. The US quickly talked to South Korea and they announced that they were not going to diversify their holdings (only later to do it slowly and privately).
But fortunately, it would not be in China's interests to dump their dollars, since it would also ruin the Chinese export market to the US. Hell, China's getting rich off from the US, why mess up a good thing? The only way China would do this would be if we were to mess about with Taiwan or something very serious.
Another weak point is the fact that the US pays for its oil imports in what can only be termed a shell game. We arm-twist oil producing countries to only price their oil in dollars. So Saudi Arabia prices their oil in dollars, we can print all the dollars we want (and we do!), and the Saudis have to take them. In the 80s we forced the Saudis (and similar puppet regimes, e.g. Kuwait) to invest those dollars into the US stock market or in US Treasury Bonds (because if the Saudis were to do anything else with them, it would illuminate how weak the dollar is). It's a shell game, but the end result is that it's another way we're selling off the country.
This oil scam can be easily popped. It will only take a group of oil producing countries to price their oil in currencies other than the US dollar. If this were to happen the US banking industry would lose huge transaction fees and we'd have to pay "real" money for oil.
And what do you know, Iran is in the process of setting up an oil market which would use multiple currencies to buy oil. Gee, you think that might explain a bit of the US hostility towards Iran?
And what do you know, Russia has talked about just that -- pricing its oil in Euros. Even though it's only talk, the US response has been harsh and explains a lot of the recent rhetoric about Russia's undemocratic policies (we had no problem with non-democracy under Yeltsin).
Of course there was one oil producing country who did break these rules and dared to price its oil in a currency (the Euro) other than the US dollar.
That country was Iraq.
But if you think the economic rules of empire don't apply to the "invincible" US military and economy, just ask the British about those rules.
Buying laptops in the Bermuda Trapezoid is a ripoff. These corporate front ends jack up the price for the priviledge of buying through them. At least in my case, it took 5 weeks to order a $2400 laptop from Taiwan, the American front end charged a rediculous markup to put their sticker on it, and it was obsolete by the time I got it.
Eventually this is going to go away and we'll be able to deal directly with Taiwan businesses, paying the fair market price.
Just today Democracy Now is running an interesting interview with a person involved in the Central American "free" trade pact.
:-(
This business school professor reiterates many of the same points brought out in these discussions. He tells an interesting story about how Mexican workers are now seen as "rich" and how employers are using the Central American "free" trade pact to drive down the wages of Mexican workers by threatening to move jobs from Mexico to Honduras.
Ahh, the wonders of corporate globalization without any element whatsoever of democracy.
The interview can be watched in Real video or listened to in an MP3 stream.
Excuse me? You cite an event that could kill off several thousands of Taiwanese and Chinese people, not mention start a nuclear war, but you are concerned about your cheap supply of laptops?
It's doubtful the Chinese will go to descructive war with the Taiwanese. Why? China wants Taiwanese factories because they make a lot of money. It would do China no good to destroy them.
Those who lived during the 1980s will remember how the world was flooded with products from a tiny island, so much so that almost everything, unless it was made in Japan, was made in Taiwan. While back in the days Made-in-Taiwan was synonymous with bad quality, that's no longer the case and now fine products are made there. I still am amazed that a tiny island like Taiwan can supply the world with sooo many products.
Mod parent -way- up.
This is exactly my experience working for an OEM. Will it pass outgoing inspection? Yes or No. Period.
I used to believe the "quality" American party-line, but I don't any more. It makes products that too few Americans want because the price is too high and the feature set too small. Meanwhile, the low-price competition is adding more poorly implemented features.
The Taiwanese/Chinese cultures of capitalism are simply remarkable. Unfettered and likely breaking scores of the rules American capitalists play by. (exs. "quality", "you get what you pay for") Nevermind what it's doing to their environment.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
You do know that the Chinese currency is pegged against the dollar, right?
Its well-accepted that the Chinese currency will devalue when they stop pegging against the dollar.
China wants Taiwanese factories because they make a lot of money. It would do China no good to destroy them.
You're a westerner, correct? Its obvious from your non-1000 year view (I'm not trying to put you down either).
So what if 10 million Chinese starve, as has happened before. They have a borg mentality over there and will take a couple dozen years of hardship if they can stab you in the back later on.
I just got my compal back after the mb died 4 months after purchase....it's branded as a Chembook or Alienware/Falcon Northwest....I absolutely love it, but I was kinda pissed it broke so soon....well let's hear it for the 3 year warranty ....
The reason for adding CPU and RAM last is because they depreciate the fastest; the later you add them, the less you have to pay.
Both mechanisms: customise in the channel and direct-from-ODM are solutions to this.
Yes, I'm aware that the Yuan is pegged to the dollar. But in the case of a dollar collapse, the Yuan could easily be detached and allowed to float like any other currency.
As to the Chinese Yuan devaluing if the Chinese stop it from being pegged to the dollar, that just doesn't make sense. Are you sure you don't have that backwards?
The US gov't is trying to get the Chinese to allow the Yuan to float freely like other currencies. The Chinese refuse, primarily for two reasons:
(1) The Yuan would rise and thus make Chinese exports more expensive on world markets (which is the public reason why the US gov't wants the Chinese to float the Yuan; this is 180 degrees opposite of what you claim).
(2) It would open the Yuan up to currency manipulation by wealthy capitalists, int'l banks, and currency traders, such as we saw in the East Asian financial collapse during the 1990s. The Chinese saw what happened to their neighbors, and, well, they aren't stupid.
Outsourcing to low-cost, high-quality Taiwanese manufacturers
That has to be a typo, since I've yet to see high-quality anything from there. What's made from there might be in high volume, but I've yet to see anything from Dell or HP after 2000 that hasnt been built as a "disposable machine". Now that IBM has sold off to the PRoC (via front company Lenovo), you can all but forget about quality.
Since there's been the illogical departure from quality to price,
1) Who still sticks to quality for laptops and avoids offshoring (like IBM has, and Apple does not count)
or
2)When will one be able to build their own laptop from the ground up their way - where if I want that black matte finish, no trackpad, 2x PCMCIA/ExpressCard, dual media bay, highend replaceable video subsystem with a 15" 1600x1200 display (or higher, still my choice), highend mobile CPU (heck even PowerPC would do here, but P-M is fine), casing of my own choice or design of higher than Asia quality (read: something like the recent pre-sellout IBM T series), long life battery(without compromising on size or graphics), IBM rivalling in durability laptop. Is that too much to ask, even if I am prepared to pay 3k+ to have something long lasting enough to never need a service call?
Coboc and similar need not apply, barebones laptops are just the same in quality as the ones from Dell/HP/Apple/Lenovo (non-Thinkpad) - abysmally low.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'd rather that there is someone who tries to teach other people how to spell properly than have others gripe at this.
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/ make laptops, and claim to make them in the US. Although, as far as I'm concerned, they're more interesting because they're SPARC laptops, not intel/amd... Probably not what you're looking for, but cool nonetheless.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
Why is it that I can stop by Frys and put together a desktop PC with cases and motherboard and what ever else but I can't buy a laptop motherboard + laptop screen/shell