Abit was never the size of Gigabyte, nor did they have more than one primary market. Gigabyte sells more than just motherboards. Abit made some bad decisions to diversify into all sorts of markets they had no expertise in, and began disappointing users with their succession of motherboards ever since the IC7 / IS7 line in their primary market. After Universal bought them they had some atrocious BIOS issues with their future boards, which is why my first Abit motherboard (The IS7, which I loved) was also my last.Apoptosis wrote:and where is ABIT now? When I started Legit Reviews back in 2002 they were the motherboard to have... Today they are gone. Enthusiast boards get a ton of PR, but guess what everyone posting rave reviews on forums like xtreme systems were provided a free sample. They may look like the 'hot' product to us, but average consumers don't buy them and the ones we see in all the forums were free samples that were given out because everyone know things sell from the top down.
In todays market you have to diversify... Look at OCZ buying PC Power & Cooling along with Hypersonic... They now to DRAM, Flash, CPU Coolers, SSD's, Notebooks, Desktop, Power Supplies, NIA's, Keyboards, Mice and so on... It was needed to grow the company and survive. Companies like ASUS have struck gold with the EeePC series and with their upcoming We PC and keyboards they are only going to grow more. Look at Dell planning on releasing a smartphone to compete with Apple. MSI, ECS and Gigabyte have mainboards, notebooks, servers, video cards and so on, but which of the three has the lowest sales and growth?
This article seems more speculative than most from Digitimes. It's a good theory, but basing those assumptions off market data during a recession that has been going on since 2007 is not a sound foundation for the argument. VP of MSI or not. I also point to XFX and EVGA selling multiple flavors of X58 motherboards, even brands like PNY sell motherboards now. Despite the rumors and news reports to the contrary, even Foxconn did release at least one of their three X58 boards to market. Not mentioned is Intel or DFI. Then there is Biostar, Albatron, ASrock, Jetway, and Zotac. And a few more. Sure, plenty of manufacturers have left, but plenty have joined.
As far as Dell releasing a smart phone... I point to Dell trying to enter the portable music player market over the last five years. They gave that one up after they wasted millions. In fact they decided they needed to abandon the idea to stay fiscally sound, which is why I am very surprised they are making a smartphone. I expect their smartphone to flub just as badly as their mp3 players did. Although after a quick google I see that Dell has ressurrected their mp3 player dreams around mid 2008 (Which they axed in 2006). I couldn't count the number of companies that diversified themselves into the ground by forgetting what they were excellent at, but Dell seems to be trying it again.
I'm sure some motherboard manufacturers will vanish, since laptops have long superseded desktops in sales. But the top four motherboard manufacturers also produce laptops or directly own laptop manufacturers. If all these small motherboard makers can exist, then the economies of scale should allow the top four to stick around if they make smart business decisions.
I know Fudzilla usually reports on speculation, but even Digitimes got in on it: 
