Asustek

Asustek, commonly known as Asus, hit the jackpot when it became the first computer maker to sell Netbooks, the popular low-cost subnotebooks with displays smaller than 10 inches in size.

With the Eee PCs, Austek quickly caught up with the big boys. Recent statistics from research house IDC showed that the Taiwanese PC maker garnered a market share of 4.7 percent and took the fifth spot in total shipments, after Lenovo, HP, Dell and Acer. Asustek grew by some 67 percent sequentially, and registered approximately 100 percent unit growth over the same period in the previous year.

The PC maker in October teamed up with chip giant Intel to launch a "dream PC" design site to solicit ideas from consumers.

Founded in 1989, Asustek is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, and sells computer hardware as well as electonics. Products include notebooks, graphics cards, PDAs and motherboards.