Hewlett-Packard has accounted for all but two of its 1,500 employees in Taiwan, but communications are difficult, said spokeswoman Anne McGrath. Both HP and Dell make, among other items, notebook PCs in Taiwan. This morning, IBM still was trying to assess the effects. The potential for a disruption when such a big chunk of worldwide personal computer assembly and component production is concentrated in one place is great. These guys also make a lot of motherboards .
Taiwanese companies make the lion's share of the PC's main circuit board, called a motherboard.
But Wall Street analysts are leaning toward caution rather than alarm. Taiwan has had a few power disruptions already this year, and stopping a fab even for a few minutes generally is not a pleasant thing, but the impact on production has been minimal. Very best case is a few days. Taiwan is also home to some of the largest manufacturers of graphics chips and circuit boards, according to Brian Matas of IC Insights, another potential flash point for PC supply-chain disruption. Other manufacturers appear to have not sustained significant damage.