[SOLVED] When did the motherboard field get narrowed down pretty much to a few main players?

[NWCherokee]

Was mentally making a list of my past builds over many years and just realized how many brands are no longer with us. I remember building with M Tech, FIC, Shuttle, Epox, and Soltek to name a few.... Did they slowly just fall-off or was there a distinct time frame where most went away? Just curious.

 

[punkncat]

I was rather curious myself.

M Tech comes up as a retail outlet selling other people's parts. I found a few vague references to branded mobo, but couldn't make anything of the website.

FIC is still around, going strong, doing a lot of OEM work. They are big enough to have their own Wikipedia page

Shuttle has it's own webpage and is apparently doing custom prebuilds with options not available to the standard use case as a side.

EPox closed in 2007 and reopened a short time later as SUPoX, they are also on Wikipedia

Soltek is the only one that appears to be actually gone gone. They still have products on Newegg as available, but business profiles indicate they went under.


Looks like of all of them FIC became a big player.

 

[NWCherokee]

Thanks! I was thinking more as to when they went away as a standalone motherboard product available to purchase through typical retail channels, but your answer might just be more interesting...

 

[drea.drechsler]

I think it began as the death of the "PC" was being contemplated in the early-mid 2010's. With year-year sales declining it's only natural to look elsewhere if you want to grow your business.