The 17 award winners were developed by different-sized Taiwan-based IT manufacturers, including Acer, A-DATA, AnMo Electronics, AsusTek, Cooler Master, Mitac, Patriot Memory, Sonnenschein, SSI, Starline, VIA, and Thermaltake.

Ralph Wiegmann, Managing Director of iF commented after the jury meeting, “The Asian IT industry tends to keep its eye on brand name or price competition rather than the product itself. Our jury would like to emphasize product quality in this competition and therefore help to raise the overall standard of quality in the Taiwanese IT industry. With that in mind, we were very critical during the evaluation stage!”

“The interesting thing is that design and quality enhancement can be used to make a company brand stronger in the minds of users,” says James Irvine, a d & i award jury member and designer of global renown. “I suggest that Taiwanese IT companies take a look at these winners and get a picture of global issues.”

Noticeably, products for the gaming sector made a big splash in the competition, which surprised the d & i award jury. “It may be that it’s difficult for me or other jurors to take these product seriously at first,” says Christoph Boninger, Senior Partner of brains4design. “That is why it took us an hour to decide whether this kind of product is in or out. Finally, we came to the conclusion that there’s a demand for this product for this generation.