by Anton Shilov
09/19/2002 | 07:47 PM
We reported last month that VisionTek was bankrupt and NVIDIA was seeking for a partner that can take over the brand-name and work under it on the US retail market. The company asked some big international computer-component makers, including Mitac, if they wanted to work with them in America, but all of them refused. The retail market itself is very dangerous, VisionTek’s positioned its products to be cheap and, finally, numerous NVIDIA’s partners went out of the business with this Santa Clara based GPU developer, making the others think that collaboration was not profitable enough.
According to numerous online publications, a new company called BFG Technologies was formed by some staff members of VisionTek. The new company will be based in Illinois, however, their graphics cards will be manufactured by Mitac in Asia. The venture capital of the new company is between $8 and $10 million, what is not a lot, but what should be enough for the beginning. Of course, the new company is fully supported by NVIDIA, who wants to make sure that the baby will grow up healthy and successful. <%BANNER[article]%>
The line of products offered by BFG Technologies will resemble the products of VisionTek, nothing new and interesting: the GeForce4 MX420 and 440 based graphics cards and GeForce4 Ti 4200 and 4600 based solutions. The box design is also similar to what was offered by VisionTek (see yourself here). You will definitely be able to purchase the “Asylum” family of graphics cards sold by this new company in the USA’s leading retail stores like CompUSA and BestBuy, as well as in numerous internet stores. I believe the new vendor will use the sale’s channels of VisionTek, hence, they will be presented widely.