Universal Abit Reportedly Leaving Motherboard Market

There have been reports that abit would be exiting the motherboard market for some time, starting when the company was acquired by the Taiwanese manufacturer Universal Scientific International (USI) in May 2006. Universal abit were quick to dispel the rumors back in May 2008, but HEXUS.channel have received confirmation from industry sources close to South East Asian distributors that abit sales representatives were to be sending notifications of their departure to distributors on August 28th.

According to the sources, Universal abit will not be halting its motherboard production straight away, but will instead continue to ship until the end of 2008. Warranty claims and RMAs will continue to be honored for a further 3 years.

This follows reports from earlier this month that Universal abit were dismissing employees from many departments, including those who previously worked on the popular Fatal1ty and MAX series of motherboards.

Abit, a second-tier Taiwanese component manufacturer, are well known for their high quality enthusiast motherboards boards. The company suffered serious financial problems during 2005 and sold its office building in Taipei to Deutsche Bank reduce its debts. In May 2006, USI acquired the company, including all patents, products and human resources related to its motherboard business.

USI are now expected to shift the company’s focus away from enthusiast hardware and onto consumer electronics. Some of these devices, such as the FunFab digital photo frame and printer were on display at this year’s Computex.

Universal abit did not immediately provide an official comment on this story, but we will update if they do.