A lot to shout about
At a distributor-day in London late last week, ENlight underlined its status as one of the world's leading makers of cases for computers and servers, with a wide-ranging display of its wares, the promise of new case designs on the way and by detailing production and sales figures to boggle the mind.
The company modestly claims to be only the world's No.2 maker of PC cases, yet reckons that it sells 1.4 million units a month! Compared to that, its monthly sales of server cases appear relatively puny - just 180,000 - but, nonetheless, that's well over 2 million a year and is said to make it the outright world server leader.
And, ENlight is also strong in the manufacture of thin-client boxes and sells a large number of power supply units. These are integrated into cases and also sold separately - made to ENlight's specifications by Delta.
At the London event, ENlight UK general manager Deborah Bebbington and UK business manager Stephen Blomfield proudly talked about how ENlight - founded in 1973 by the current president Chi-Ming Liao and now with over 6,500 employees worldwide - supplies (or has supplied) cases on an OEM basis to most of the world's leading system integrators from plants that it operates in China (Kunshan and Dongken), Taiwan (Linkou and Taoyuan ) and Juarez in Mexico.
The list of OEM clients really is an A-to-Z of top PC makers. It includes Acer and ASUS at one end, Packard Bell, Samsung, Sony and Tyan at the other and - in between - such names as Compaq, Gateway, Gigabyte, IBM and Intel. And that's just a small selection - a comprehensive list would also take in most of the top local system builders around the world.
With such huge numbers of cases rolling of its production lines, the company's revenues are, as you'd expect, substantial. The figure for 2004 was said to be over US$350 million and bettered by 2005's $400m-plus. The prediction for 2006 is that ENlight will breach the half-a-billion-dollar mark!
Big-selling EN-2404 Micro-ATX media-centre case
But those very numbers might lead you to believe that this is a somewhat faceless operation - a failing that both Deborah and Stephen say ENlight strives hard to avoid. To most system integrators, the public face of the company is represented by its distributors and they, it's reckoned, act as a lighting conductor for the needs of firms that buy ENlight's products.
Stephen pointed out that the UK subsidiary - one of 12 worldwide - takes on board the need for localised features, including case fascias. This, he reckoned, allows system builders to produce PCs with maximum appeal to a wide spectrum of purchasers, taking in gamers, ordinary home users, small or large businesses, utility companies, local and national government and more.
There's a massive range of case types available from ENlight and this was reflected in the large selection shown to its distributors. We'll gloss over the server cases, which take in a full range from 1u to 5u, and look instead at the PC cases that tickled our fancy...
