HP surprised many last week, when it announced its move to spin off its PC products division, which sells all HP-branded PC products. That sparked off

HP surprised many last week, when it announced its move to spin off its PC products division, which sells all HP-branded PC products. That sparked off speculation about which company will acquire it. There are feelers in the industry, particularly in Taiwan, which houses several OEMs, that Samsung could be in the run for acquiring HP's PC business. The Korean conglomerate deals with the IT and consumer electronics industries under the Samsung Electronics company. Samsung is reported to have contacted Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Pegatron Technology, major Taiwan-based OEMs of notebooks, to evaluate the possibility of outsourcing notebook orders.

Samsung manufactures its notebooks though OEMs in mainland China, and had in older occasions, contacted Taiwan-based OEMs for outsourcing manufacturing, without any result. The move to contact them now is fueling speculation that Samsung is planning to expand its PC business in a big way. Sources note that Taiwan's notebook manufacturing industry is unmatched worldwide, in terms of cost control and production efficiency. If Samsung takes over HP's PC department, HP's over 40 million PC shipment volume will still need to depend on Taiwan OEMs. However, related suppliers of components such as panel, memory and battery may be affected as Samsung has a rather strong vertical integration supply chain.