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Motherboard major Micro-Star scouting for partners

A redeeming feature for this year's Comdex India show in terms of international presence is the participation by about 25 companies from Taiwan.

Many of the prominent motherboard makers are here.

The star participant in the Taiwan contingent of 20 companies is Micro-Star International Corporation Limited, one of the top five motherboard manufacturers for computer processors.

Vincent Young of the company talked to Rediff about the purpose of their presence and his experience at the show.

"Micro-Star is a company founded in 1980 by five R&D engineers who had earlier been with Sony. The company sales turnover for the year now is $260 million. It has the capacity to manufacture 550,000 pieces per month and will soon be expanding to 750,000 per month.

"Rated as one of the top six motherboard manufacturers in the world, Micro-Star is coming to India for the first time, although some business has been done through importers earlier."

Young is a sales specialist for the company. "We are a humble company having simple designations," Young says, half in jest, "I look after sales for India, and do the same things that any sales director in any major international company does."

"India is a big market for motherboards and VGA cards," feels Young. The Asian countries are reeling under a severe recession, he points out. The computer market is down everywhere: Thailand and Malaysia by 50 per cent, Indonesia 80 per cent, Korea  20 per cent and Taiwan is just about floating at the same level.

"It is good to see," says Young, "that India is showing very satisfactory growth rates at 25-30 per cent."

Micro-Star has collaboration with Intel and is always updating technology for motherboards. The latest is already here, Young gestures at the products on display.

Quality is the cornerstone for Micro-Star's growth, Young claims. "We are probably the only IT Company in this show with the ISO 9001 certification (for the entire products as against processes). We got this as far back as 1996."

Young is here to identify partners for entering India in a big way. There are a lot of enquires over the last few days, and many from original equipment manufacturers, Young disclosed.

"This is a good forum to build our brand image in India. It's going to help us in the future. The Indian customers are rather tough customers," Young observed, "they are very price sensitive. And they are looking for quality too!"

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