Chi Mei Optoelectronics pleads guilty to LCD price fixing with five other unnamed companies

TFT-LCD maker Chi Mei Optoelectronics has plead guilty to LCD price fixing and has been ordered to pay a $220 million fine by the U.S. Department of Justice. Chi Mei conspired with five other unnamed companies to fix the prices of TFT-LCD panels during a five-year long period from Sept. 14, 2001, to Dec. 1, 2006. According to the DOJ, the total value of the TFT-LCD market was $70 billion after the price fixing period ended. The market sure grew a lot during the five years this went on unnoticed.

Source: [eWeek]

Acer chairman faults Dell and HP for weak adoption of ultra-thin notebooks

Acer chairman JT Wang knows what consumers want their notebooks like: ultra-thin and with lots of battery life. Acer has put out quite remarkable models in their Timeline-series of notebooks, and they're enjoying a fair number of sales, but Wang believes that the numbers could be bigger if only American companies like Dell and HP wouldn't get in the way. Acer's Wang blames Dell and HP for preventing ultra-thin notebooks from becoming the mainstream product in the market by bringing down prices of its own non-ultra-thin mainstream notebooks to as low as $399. The small price gap is what holds back adoption of ultra-thin notebooks, which are usually underpowered (for the sake of prolonging battery life) compared to current mainstream notebooks. Acer is currently planning on releasing more ultra-thin models in the future, but if Dell and HP won't let up, there's a chance that we might not see these products ever released at all.

Source: [DigiTimes]