Rumour control: Abit exiting motherboard business this year

Posted at: 10:49am 29th August 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

More gossip mounts up about Abit not only quitting the enthusiast motherboard business, but actually exiting the motherboard business completely

Big changes appear to be afoot at former Fatal1ty motherboard manufacturer Abit now. Earlier this month, a source close to Universal Abit told us that the company had laid off a massive amount of staff and was no longer interested in the enthusiast motherboard market. However, if the latest rumours are to be believed, Abit plans to exit the entire motherboard market for good this year.

UK tech site Hexus reports that Abit ‘will stop producing all mainboards at the end of 2008’ after speaking to ‘sources close to South East Asian distributors.’ According to the site, Abit plans to continue producing motherboards until the end of 2008, and will also honour warranties for three years after that.

Abit has so far declined to comment on the rumours, but the company recently relocated its HQ to the Nangang Software Park, which is near the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall, where Computex is held. This may or may not be linked to the rumours about quitting the motherboard business, but it appears to mark a change in strategy of some kind.

So what will Universal Abit make if it’s not making motherboards? According to Hexus, the company will be shifting towards consumer electronics devices, which it’s already started producing with products such as the digital photo frame printer, which is a part of Abit’s Multimedia scheme.