Tiawan Industry News Services reports that the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association commissioned a study to determine the speed at which Taiwan’s ICT industry manufactured certain computer and communications goods.

1 server every 15 seconds
1 PDA every 3.5 seconds
1 digital camera every 1.5 seconds

1 notebook PC, 1 desktop PC, and 1 CDT monitor every 0.9 seconds
1 LCD monitor every 0.7 seconds
1 mobile phone every 0.6 seconds
1 WLAN product every 0.5 seconds

1 optical disk drive and 1 motherboard every 0.3 seconds

This production accounts for high percentages of worldwide market shares of these products:

89.2 to 59.0 percent for routers, WLAN products, DSL CPEs, cable modems, and switches,
79.0 percent of PDAs
77.9 percent of PC motherboards
72.4 percent of notebook PCs for USD 28.9 billion
68.0 percent of LCD monitors for USD 14.4 billion

From common knowledge among manufacturers, not from this industry report, the following are important related notes for school purchasers of Tablet PC and Ultra Mobile PCs to consider:

The US has no PC manufacturers, only assemblers and branders.

US and other brands are manufactured mostly in Tiawan by six or seven companies. (The number of companies changes as they acquire each other and change their manufacturing and marketing plans.)

That means competing brands come from the same manufacurer, including the most expensive and the least expensive products.

Different brands have different technical specs, meaning all Tablet PCs, ultra mobile PCs, and other notebook PCs are not the same inside and will likely not perform equally with heavy or extended use.

Interestingly, some of the Tiawan companies outsource production to manufacturing plants in the PRC (mainland China).

I don't remember the answer to this, but I wonder what percentage of new PCs are purchased by US schools. I think it's a high percentage.


Tablet PC Education Blog