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Digilite—the motherboard brand of Smartlink Network has launched two new motherboards namely G41MX3-LT with Intel processors and A76ML-K with AMD processors.
The motherboards come with parallel and IDE ports that support old or refurbished HDDs. Smartlink claimed that the motherboards would bridge the shortage in the SATA HDD, created due to floods in Thailand-the hub of HDD manufacturing globally.
“Our partners have started selling the motherboards. We are aiming to bridge the supply gap of the HDD shortage by 40 percent. We are looking at selling 40,000 units in the next two months, and are targeting mainly the SOHOs, SMEs and the assembled desktop market,” said Rajan Sharma, VP, Sales and Marketing, Smartlink.
Gartner estimated that the HDD shortage would rise till July 2012, by which time the HDD prices would reach unaffordable limits thus impacting other IT products like notebooks and desktops apart from servers and storage. In Q42011 alone, the global supply is expected to be 35-percent short of the overall demand of 180 million units.
According to Digilite, adding IDE port in the motherboards will help create space for customers who are delaying the purchase due to SATA HDD price hike. It has included both models in all its schemes and promotions to ensure awareness and maximum spread in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
Sharma also pointed out that since the components would be locally manufactured, it would reduce the time for inventory movement. “It gives us tremendous advantage in terms of economy of scale and helps serve our customers on priority," he added.
However, partners felt that the new motherboards can resolve 40 percent of the problem. “Old 160 GB IDE HDDs are still available with some retailers and from those who deal in second hand IT hardware. The problem is that HDDs with 250GB capacity and above are not available and so end users have to be satisfied with lower capacity HDDs at the moment. Another issue is that the price of a IDE HDD is more than that of a SATA HDD of the same capacity which might also deter many in investing into the new motherboards,” said Vishwanath Vitthal, Proprietor of Pune-based Ankita Sales.
Both the motherboards are available at a street price of Rs 2,400 and come with a 3-year warranty. |