Foxconn rumored to buy Pegatron

Foxconn rumored to buy Pegatron
 
By now I’m sure that many of you will have heard the rumours circulating around the web that are suggesting that Foxconn intends to “pull out of the motherboard market“. Well it appears that there may be some behind the scenes brokering going on between ASUS and Foxconn, if another rumour started by The Inquirer is to be believed. Last year most of you will probably remember that ASUS divided its core company into three parts – Asus, Pegatron and Unihan. ASUS remained the brand name goods that you buy, Pegatron became the OEM manufacturer and Unihan basically handles everything else that ASUS manufactures that doesn’t fall under the first two entities. Now here is where it gets interesting, and I quote:
 
The rumors flying around old Taipei is that Foxconn is going to grab Pegatron, making a seriously huge OEM/ODM monster. There is a catch however: the rumor says that Asus won’t let it go to Foxconn unless Foxconn drops its channel/retail business. If you think about it, that deal plays to the strengths of both sides. Asus is a channel master, and Foxconn will elicit a heart felt ‘who?’ from most computer shoppers, but makes most of the things they purchase.
 
So if the rumoured deal goes ahead then Foxconn will become strictly an OEM/ODM manufacturer, and ASUS in turn gets Foxconn’s market share of the channel business – theoretically. According to the source, the two possible dates that these deals could occur would be the end of this year or the middle of 2009. This seems to tie in with the rumoured six month period that Foxconn has given the channel business to start making them some money. Interesting times ahead…
 
How do you see this playing out?
 
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