Sumner Lemon

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is having a growing impact on IT companies in Asia as the disease continues to spread throughout parts of the region, particularly in China and Taiwan.

The competitive threat to Taiwan's contract chip-makers was supposed to come from Shanghai, not East Fishkill, New York.

It's not business as usual in some parts of Asia anymore.nThe outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), a potentially deadly disease that is caused by a previously unknown and highly infectious virus, has disrupted the operations of companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. And analysts warned that the spread of the disease, if unchecked, could limit the supply of some key electronic components, affecting the availability and pricing of some hardware systems.

Intel Corp. is not expected to officially launch its Canterwood and Springdale chipsets for several weeks yet, but that isn't stopping some motherboard makers from pushing products based on the as-yet-unreleased chipsets at the CeBIT exhibition, which opens in Hanover, Germany on Wednesday.

Microsoft Corp. will lower prices for some of its software sold in Taiwan by more than 25 per cent as part of a settlement agreement reached with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC), the company said.

For the second time in as many months, Intel Corp. Monday reduced the prices for some models of its processor line, with the price of desktop Pentium 4 processors and some Xeon processors being cut by as much as 21 per cent.

Taiwanese memory-chip maker Promos Technologies Inc. has hit back after Infineon Technologies AG announced Monday it had terminated a technology licensing agreement between the two companies, calling statements made by the German chip maker "misleading" and "ill-intended."

German chip maker Infineon Technologies AG announced Monday it was immediately terminating a technology licensing deal with Promos Technologies Inc.