Live from ASUS’ Computex 2009 Press Conference

Good morning from Taipei! We just took our seats at the ASUS press conference.  Along the right side of the room ASUS already has a number of notebooks and netbooks on display, including each of the notebooks in the U Series which is powered by Intel’s ULV platform. The UX50 , which we went hands-on with last month, is on display. The conference should be starting any minute now. ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih has taken the stage. Innovation is important during these tough times, he says. ASUS just turned 20 years old! In the U.S. it still wouldn’t be able to legally drink. Jonney talking about ASUS’ vision of the digital era. This is a device centric era. Showing off the UX50 and UX30 now. Both are extremely thin and use Intel’s ULV platform. According to ASUS, 88 percent of Eee PC owners purchased the netbook as an additional PC. ASUS got a lot of great idea from the WePC.com site. Now discussing the foldable laptop idea that was demonstrated at CES. Intel’s Executive Vice President Sean Maloney just took the stage. He is leading off by talking about how notebook sales haven’t declined over the last year. Intel is delighted to be working with ASUS on ultra-thin notebooks powered by Intel’s ULV platform. “The combination of ULV and ultra-thin laptops and Windows 7 is a huge innovation for the industry,” Maloney says. Speaking of Windows 7, Steven Guggenheimer has taken center stage to discuss the new OS. Nothing new here. When asked about the Qualcomm Snapdragon Eee PC, Shih said the company is keeping quiet about the netbook and will not be showing or talking about it at Computex 2009. When asked again about it he said, “It is only a company thought.” That is all folks. We will be going hands on with some of the U Series notebooks soon.