On The Exhibit Floor - VIA, SiS, And MSI

We met with Richard Brown, Director, International Marketing for VIA. Brown was enthusiastic about VIA's latest acquisition, IC Ensemble. We reviewed Creative's Audigy agains Terratec, which is based on ICE's technology, if you'd like some background on this company's technology.

Look out for VIA to aggressively push high-end audio onto the motherboard and into value systems. In addition, VIA's Eden mini-iTX platform was getting quite a bit of attention. With so much of WinHEC's emphasis on the device universe around Windows, there was bound to be demand for small form factor products.

Also on show was the P4X333 reference platform launched at CeBIT.

Richard Brown, standing in front of P4X333 reference platform. The audio in there is from VIA's latest acquisition, IC Ensemble. Brown wanted us to know that VIA is going to be pushing high-end audio, naturally. Watch out, Creative.

VIA's Eden mini-iTX platform attracted quite a bit of attention at the show.

Every small form factor motherboard and subsystem deserves a case. While these cases have fans, Brown told us that VIA was showcasing these cases with a view towards fanless designs in the future targeted at the consumer market.

MSI had a small presence at the booth manned by the company's affable Marketing Manager, Kevin Huang.

Kevin Huang of MSI plays it cool despite standing in front of somethng that no one was supposed to see.