queen s faculty of arts and sciences . asustek computer inc. asus asustek computer headquarters type public traded as twse 2357 lse askd industry computer hardware electronics founded april 2 1989 ; 27 years ago 1989 04 02 founder ted hsu m.t. liao wayne tsiah t.h. tung headquarters beitou district taipei taiwan area served worldwide key people jonney shih chairman products desktops laptops netbooks mobile phones networking equipment monitors projectors motherboards graphics cards optical storage multimedia products peripherals wearables servers workstations and tablet pcs revenue nt 472.4 billion 2015 1 operating income nt 21.0 billion 2015 1 profit nt 17.0 billion 2015 1 total assets nt 333.6 billion 2015 1 total equity nt 167.3 billion 2015 1 number of employees 6 067 2015 2 website www.asus.com asus traditional chinese simplified chinese literal meaning asus computer stock share limited company transcriptions standard mandarin hanyu pinyin hu shu di nna g f n y uxi n g ngs asus traditional chinese simplified chinese literal meaning chinese eminent eminence of by the chinese people traditional chinese ; simplified chinese transcriptions standard mandarin hanyu pinyin hu shu asustek computer inc. traditional chinese ; simplified chinese ; pinyin hu shu di nn o g f n y uxi n g ngs stylized as sus is a taiwanese multinational computer hardware and electronics company headquartered in beitou district taipei taiwan . its products include desktops laptops netbooks mobile phones networking equipment monitors projectors motherboards graphics cards optical storage multimedia products peripherals wearables servers workstations and tablet pcs . the company is also an oem manufacturer . asus is the world s 4th largest pc vendor by 2015 unit sales . 3 asus appears in businessweek s infotech 100 and asia s top 10 it companies rankings and it ranked first in the it hardware category of the 2008 taiwan top 10 global brands survey with a total brand value of 1.3 billion . 4 asus has a primary listing on the taiwan stock exchange under the ticker code 2357 and a secondary listing on the london stock exchange under a ticker code askd . contents 1 name 2 history 3 operations 4 products 4.1 smartphones 4.2 2 in 1s 4.3 laptops 4.4 tablets 4.5 desktop & all in one pcs 4.6 eee line 4.7 essentio series 4.8 digital media receivers 4.9 gps devices 4.10 republic of gamers rog 4.11 sound cards 4.12 asus vivopc line 4.13 portable monitors 5 environmental record 5.1 green asus 5.2 recognition 5.3 recycling campaign 6 unlicensed software and dissemination of confidential data 7 see also 8 references 9 external links name edit the company is usually referred to as asus e su s 5 stylized as sus or hu shu in chinese traditional chinese ; simplified chinese literally eminence of by the chinese people . according to the company website the name asus originates from pegasus the winged horse of greek mythology . 6 7 only the last four letters of the word were used in order to give the name a high position in alphabetical listings . 8 the company s slogan tagline was rock solid . heart touching then inspiring innovation . persistent perfection . and is currently in search of incredible . 9 history edit asus was founded in taipei in 1989 10 by t.h. tung ted hsu wayne hsieh and m.t. liao 11 all four having previously worked at acer as hardware engineers . at this time taiwan had yet to establish a leading position in the computer hardware business . intel corporation would supply any new processors to more established companies like ibm first and taiwanese companies would have to wait for approximately six months after ibm received their engineering prototypes . according to the legend the company created a prototype for a motherboard using an intel 486 but it had to do so without access to the actual processor . when asus approached intel to request a processor to test it intel itself had a problem with their motherboard . asus solved intel s problem and it turned out that asus own motherboard worked correctly without the need for further modification . since then asus was receiving intel engineering samples ahead of its competitors . 12 13 in september 2005 asus released the first physx accelerator card . 14 in december 2005 asus entered the lcd tv market with the tlw32001 model . 15 in january 2006 asus announced that it would cooperate with lamborghini to develop the vx series . 16 on 9 march 2006 asus was confirmed as one of the manufacturers of the first microsoft origami models together with samsung and founder technology . 17 on 8 august 2006 asus announced a joint venture with gigabyte technology . 18 on 5 june 2007 asus announced the launch of the eee pc at computex taipei . on 9 september 2007 asus indicated support for blu ray announcing the release of a bd rom dvd writer pc drive bc 1205pt . 19 asus subsequently released several blu ray based notebooks . in january 2008 asus began a major restructuring of its operations splitting into three independent companies asus focused on applied first party branded computers and electronics ; pegatron focused on oem manufacturing of motherboards and components ; and unihan corporation focused on non pc manufacturing such as cases and molding . 20 21 in the process of the restructuring a highly criticized pension plan restructuring effectively zeroed out the existing pension balances . the company paid out all contributions previously made by employees . 22 on 9 december 2008 the open handset alliance announced that asus had become one of 14 new members of the organization . these new members will either deploy compatible android devices contribute significant code to the android open source project or support the ecosystem through products and services that will accelerate the availability of android based devices . 23 on 1 june 2010 asus spun off pegatron corp. 24 in october 2010 asus and garmin announced that they would be ending their smartphone partnership as a result of garmin deciding to exit the product category . 25 the two companies had produced six garmin asus branded smartphones over the prior two years . 25 in december 2010 asus launched the world s thinnest notebook the asus u36 with intel processor voltage standard not low voltage intel core i3 or i5 with a thickness of only 19 mm . 26 in january 2013 asus officially ended production of its eee pc series due to declining sales caused by consumers increasingly switching to tablets and ultrabooks . 27 28 operations edit an asus shop in hong kong asus has its headquarters in beitou district taipei taiwan . 29 as of 2009 update asus had manufacturing facilities in taiwan taipei luzhu nangan guishan mainland china suzhou chongqing mexico ciudad ju rez and the czech republic ostrava . the asus hi tech park located in suzhou covers 540 000 m2 5 800 000 sq ft . citation needed asus operates around 50 service sites across 32 countries and has over 400 service partners worldwide . products edit asus products include 2 in 1s laptops tablet computers desktop computers mobile phones personal digital assistants pdas servers computer monitors motherboards graphics cards sound cards optical disc drives computer networking devices computer cases computer components and computer cooling systems . an asus fonepad an asus nvidia geforce 210 silent graphics card asus nvidia geforce gtx 650 ti a pci express 3.0 x16 graphics card an asus x21 ultrabook an asus motherboard smartphones edit main article asus zenfone asus also launched many android based smartphones predominantly with intel rather than arm processors and often with two sim slots . asus is currently very influential in big mobile markets like india china and other asian countries . it is known as the zenfone series . prior to the zenfone line asus has released feature phones such as the asus v70 and smartphones running on windows mobile during the mid 2000s . zenfone 4 available in either 4 inch or 4.5 inch variant zenfone 5 zenfone 6 zenfone c zenfone 2 zenfone 2 laser zenfone 3 zenfone max zenfone selfie zenfone go 30 zenfone 2e made specifically for at & t and released in 2015 31 additionally asus also produced some hybrid devices with smartphones that can be docked in a tablet screen known as padfone series . the product lineup are padfone s padfone x padfone infinity padfone mini padfone x mini most of asus smartphones are powered by intel atom processors with the exceptions of few padfone series and some zenfone 2 models that use qualcomm snapdragon . 2 in 1s edit transformer book laptops edit zenbook republic of gamers n series k a series x series e series chromebooks f series tablets edit asus memo pad road show two generations of the nexus 7 manufactured for and branded as google was announced on 27 june 2012 for release in july 2012 . 32 on july 24 2013 asus announced a successor to the google nexus 7 . two days later it was released . 33 asus has also been working with microsoft in developing windows 8 convertible tablets . 34 in 2013 asus revealed an android based tablet computer that when attached to a keyboard becomes a windows 8 device which it called the transformer book trio . 35 the keyboard can be attached to a third party monitor creating a desktop like experience . asus is also known for the following tablet computer lines eee pad transformer eee pad slider eee slate memo pad 8 asus zenpad 7.0 zenpad 8.0 zenpad s. 8.0 36 released q4 2015 . desktop & all in one pcs edit tower pcs vivopc series rog series gaming series mini pcs vivopc vivomini chrome devices chromebox chromebit all in one pcs zen aio vivo aio portable aio eee line edit since its launch in october 2007 the eee pc netbook has garnered numerous awards including forbes asia s product of the year 37 stuff magazine s gadget of the year and computer of the year 38 nbc.com s best travel gadget computer shopper s best netbook of 2008 pc pro s hardware of the year pc world s best netbook and dime magazine s 2008 trend award winner . asus subsequently added several products to its eee lineup including eeebox pc a compact nettop eee top an all in one touchscreen computer housed in an lcd monitor enclosure eee stick a plug and play wireless controller for the pc platform that translates users physical hand motions into corresponding movements onscreen eee pad transformer is a tablet computer that runs the android operating system 39 eee pad transformer prime the successor to the original transformer . on 6 march 2009 asus debuted its eee box b202 which pcmag saw as the desktop equivalent of the asus eeepc the asus eee box computer line is later in 2010 renamed to asus eeebox pc . 40 essentio series edit asus n55 s package essentio is a line of desktop pcs . as of december 2011 the line consisted of the cg series designed for gaming the cm series for entertainment and home use and the cs and cp slimline series . 41 digital media receivers edit asus sells digital media receivers under the name asus o play . 42 gps devices edit asus produces the r700t gps device which incorporates traffic message channel . 43 republic of gamers rog edit republic of gamers is a brand used by asus since 2006 encompassing a range of computer hardware personal computers peripherals and accessories oriented primarily toward pc gaming . the line includes both desktops and high spec laptops such as the asus rog crosshair v formula z motherboard or the asus rog g751jy dh71 laptop . sound cards edit asus released its first sound card the xonar dx in february 2008 . the xonar dx was able to emulate the eax 5.0 effects through