Interesting article in today's Wall St. Journal: "The Laptop Trail" - how laptops like our beloved pbooks are put together in China using "hyperefficient" production technologies. Now I know where those orders go. 100% of Dell, Apple, Gateway and Acer laptops are outsourced.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...954442,00.html
(subscription req'd)
excerpt:
"When a customer in the U.S. clicks on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Web site to purchase one of its Pavilion zd8000 laptop computers, the order quickly arrives thousands of miles away at a factory in China run by a less-familiar name, Quanta Computer Inc.
Although virtually unknown to consumers, Quanta is the world's biggest maker of laptops. As part of a sometimes-difficult symbiosis, the Taiwanese company makes roughly one-quarter of the world's portable computers, which are then sold by brands such as H-P and Dell Inc. Quanta collects components from countries around the world and assembles them at its Quanta Shanghai Manufacture City complex.
A look inside the making of a modern laptop PC shows how the process has evolved into the epitome of hyperefficient global production while also navigating a maze of corporate and geopolitical sensitivities. U.S. computer brands now farm out much of their manufacturing to Taiwanese concerns, which also are starting to design more of these products as well. The Taiwanese companies pull together parts to build the computers in China and then ship them to the purchaser, all in a matter of days."
I guess I can't copy & paste the entire article without bending copyright rules, right?
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