Tuesday, May 7th 2019
Super Micro Moving Manufacturing Outside China to Allay Spyware Fears
Motherboard manufacturer Super Micro is moving manufacturing completely outside China to allay fears from customers on spyware implanted by China. Bloomberg in October 2018 put out a sensational article alleging that Super Micro, which specializes in server motherboards bought in bulk by data-centers and cloud companies, contain spyware by the Chinese government designed to spy on US enterprises. Super Micro was quick to refute the article as baseless, but by then the damage to its reputation was done. Faced with declining sales by as much as 10 percent despite rapid industrial CAGR growth, the company is now forced to relocate manufacturing outside China not just to allay these fears, but perhaps also to reduce its import tariff burden imposed by the US government on a spectrum of electronics goods manufactured in China.
China had a manufacturing strangehold on server motherboard manufacturing, amounting to 90 percent of server motherboards shipped in 2017. In 2018, however, with the the US-China trade-war underway, that figure dropped like a rock to just 50 percent, a dramatic fall for just one year. Server component manufacturers are relocating to other countries, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Super Micro is relocating to Taiwan, with a new factory set up in Taoyuan at a cost of $65 million.
Source:
TechSpot
China had a manufacturing strangehold on server motherboard manufacturing, amounting to 90 percent of server motherboards shipped in 2017. In 2018, however, with the the US-China trade-war underway, that figure dropped like a rock to just 50 percent, a dramatic fall for just one year. Server component manufacturers are relocating to other countries, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Super Micro is relocating to Taiwan, with a new factory set up in Taoyuan at a cost of $65 million.
31 Comments on Super Micro Moving Manufacturing Outside China to Allay Spyware Fears
The day that article got traction - I knew it was bogus and had some kind of agenda behind it.
...and they still haven't retracted the story, even though zero evidence has turned up. The whole thing is based on some variations of "anonymous sources from a large company" or pure speculation.
Pretty sure motherboards are "high tech".
Howerver, being delisted on NASDAQ, getting blasted by increasing import tariffs, and losing lots of money after being falsely accused of having a science fiction-like supply chain infiltration... all within a year -- does.
These Bloomberg guys are shady. I know this isn’t STH’s focus, but you’re doing a great job on this line and you’re the server expert. That first page was completely damning. There’s no way you can look at their statements dissected like that and say their story is completely true.
If I wanted to read a fictional novel, the Bloomberg guys are better writers than you so there’s that.
They simply blocked every news article about the 25% tariff.
Gov personnel got out quickly.
Civilians had no idea their stock would crumble in minutes.
Fair trade is a joke in China.
China building up their military capabilities, without being in danger of anything, clrealy expanding in the China Sea and being more "vocal" about Taiwan, brought that to themselves.
Also, an article on Bloomberg cannot describe EXACTLY what the Inteligence Community knows about the spying, for very good reasons. Amazon, Apple, Google not buying those server motherboards made in China anymore tells more than anything.
Does USA & allies spy? Yes.
Let's not think that one superpower is doing all the bad stuff. If you want a real hint as to where the power is shifting, look to Russia where the new foreign company server rules are in place and the state is required to monitor them. Add in a dash of state-sponsored cyber activity and you have the perfect, walled garden threat to all. Russia is making its move to net independence (also called complete control) and cyber warfare on a globally intrusive scale.
As for moving stuff to Taiwan? That's the straw on the camels back for China. I wonder how long before it simply* takes it back?
*Simply, obviously, is a little light but China views Taiwan as China.
Chinese spying is good for them. Bad for everyone else.
This site is not in China, hence... we don't agree with the Chinese spying. I am less concerned with US spying on me, I have nothing to hide from US government and they are absolutelly not interested in what I type here. It's still one of the few (the only?) countries in the world with freedom of speech, no matter what Facebook, Twitter and such want us to became.
Those are just scare tactics used by Chinese bots to shift the blame.
Next move: US taxing Taiwan.
The only surveillance is done by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, free email accounts, and we all agreed to that. Well, almost all, I don't have a Facebook or twitter account.
PS: It's all done to be sold for advertising, witch to me is another big fallacy - the advertising doesn't work like the ad companies try to tell everyone it does. It's just a redistribution of wealth mechanism... from companies that make usable products to the Silicon Valley that does... nothing.
I sometimes wonder how people with views like that end up on a technology enthusiast website. Uh, nope. Because military spying != civilian spying.
If you have nothing to hide you should still be an advocate for civilian privacy. As I said earlier, nothing irks a privacy advocate more than the " I got nothing to hide" logic fallacy. It's a cold-hearted liberty killer.
That's way OT for this, but I can't just leave crap like that uncontested.
I also know very well what Taiwan is and isn't, since I've spent well over a decade living on the island. One part (mostly the KMT) want reunion of some kind and the other part (DPP and others) want Taiwan to declare independence from something, but it's uncertain as to what this is. Technically speaking, the ROC is an invading hostile force in Taiwan that took the island by force. Taiwan has never been under Chinese rule. Parts of the island, maybe, but never the entire island, just as it was never under western rule at any point, besides small little coastal forts. The only nation that has ruled all of Taiwan is Japan and they killed a lot of the native population to get to there, something the ROC decided to copy in many ways, for example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
Small island, lost of really nasty history.
I just have a hard time with people making comments about things they seemingly know so little about, especially as they live in some other part of the world and don't have to worry about things like China maybe invading one day.
It's not much different than if someone came and told the public "Aliens have planted spyware in every Apple product ever!" It's every bit as unbelievable to those in the know, but the average person in the world fears China (rightly or not is NOT the debate nor point) more than they fear aliens, hence they accept the bloomberg story.
That's pretty much the only difference. They have exactly the same level of substantiating evidence.