There was a time when VIA was a common name in computers for motherboard chipsets and low power processors, but it has been quite a while since they've been in the news. It's PC division has been having a very rough couple of years; only their telecom, USB and ARM branches have been bringing in money. They do however own quite a few patents which has attracted the attention of an unnamed China-based communications chip player who, according to DigiTimes, are looking to purchase VIA. This will likely have little effect on the North American market but could put them in much better standing in the Asian markets.
"In the first half of 2012, VIA suffered net losses of NT$1.86 billion (US$62 million) and compared to the same period a year ago, the amount increased 63% with EPS already at negative NT$1.89. Although the company achieved an on-month growth in July revenues, due to the weak global economy and strong competition in China's white-box market, market watchers are mostly conservative about its future performance."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Nokia Researcher Puts Firefox OS On Raspberry Pi @ Slashdot
- Blackberry 10 handsets will come with HD 720p screens @ The Inquirer
- Cray to plug Kepler GPUs into future Cascade supers @ The Register
- First tranche of Windows 8 released via MSDN and TechNet @ The Register
- Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 Performance @ Techspot
- Hands On With Windows 8 RTM @ TechReviewSource
- Intel Graphics Hit High Point With Linux 3.6 Kernel @ Phoronix
- Microsoft, Adobe throw fire blanket over blaze of security flaws @ The Register
- Visual Studio 2012 arrives in MSDN downloads @ The Register
- WIN A HIS HD 7770 iCooler 1GB GHz Edition! @ HardwareLOOK
I’m pretty sure I had a VIA
I’m pretty sure I had a VIA motherboard in a really old PC, I’m talking Cyrix 6×86 L PR200+ old… Then VIA assimilated Cyrix. Ahh the good old days.