Rumour control: Mass lay-offs at Abit prompt exit from enthusiast market

Posted at: 10:40am 7th August 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Sources say that most of the Fatal1ty motherboard team have now moved to Foxconn and Biostar

While it now seems common practice to strike a deal with Jonathan ‘Fatal1ty’ Wendel when you’ve got a high-end product covered in red LEDs, the first company to do so was Abit when it announced the Fatal1ty AA8 back in 2004. This signalled Abit’s commitment to making high-end enthusiast motherboards, but Custom PC has been informed that recent mass lay-offs at Abit could signal an end to the company’s role in the high-end motherboard business.

Speaking to Custom PC, a source close to Abit said that the company has ‘laid off many staff from various departments within its HQ based in Taiwan.’ According to our source, the lay-offs were the result of the Abit brand being bought by Universal Scientific Industrial in 2006, which resulted in ‘most of the original Abit support and admin staff’ being laid off.

Back then, Universal Scientific Industrial apparently decided to keep on the Abit marketing team and the ‘key engineers needed to continue making high-end to mainstream motherboards.’ However, come July 2008, our source claims that ‘most of the Research and Development team have been laid off, and between 3-4 people from almost every engineering department from Quality Control to Field Application Engineers too.’ Our source also added that this includes ‘everyone from the previous team who designed the likes of the MAX and Fatal1ty series that many enthusiasts grew to love.’

According to our source, some of these guys joined the teams at Biostar and Foxconn, and the latter has certainly made its presence felt in the enthusiast motherboard market with high-end motherboards such as the Mars. Interestingly, our source also suggested that this could signal Abit’s exit from the motherboard market in general, saying that Abit could now conduct a ‘subtle shift to align itself more closely with what USI can make easily, namely: notebooks, UMPCs and photo frames.’

Would you miss Abit if it left the motherboard business? What did you think of Abit’s Fatal1ty motherboards? Let us know your thoughts.