Acer will add Inventec to its list of ODM notebook manufacturers, joining Compal Electronics, Quanta Computer and Wistron, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported today. cer has reportedly been seeking a fourth contract notebook maker in order to reach its goal of shipping seven million notebooks next year. Although Foxconn Electronics (the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry) was originally thought to be the most likely partner, Acer ruled out the EMS giant in March, when Acer chairman JT Wang stated that Foxconn has decided to focus on OEM notebook production, instead of the ODM business

A few examples of ODMs are Quanta, Compal, Clevo, Mitac, Asus, Acer, Arima, Uniwill (now ECS/Uniwill) -- perhaps you have never heard of these companies before. But you have definitely seen their systems under other well known brand names. ODMs are usually located somewhere in Asia, and may have distribution centers in the US. ODMs distribute their product to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Each ODM sells its computers to many different OEMs. Clevo is usually first and on the cutting edge when it comes to gaming laptops."

"A significant point to note is that the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of ODMs.[3] The ODM matters more than the OEM. Major relationships include:

* Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world
* Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell
* Wistron sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, and Acer
* Arima sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell
* Uniwill/ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell
* Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung
* Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ"

Virtually none of the namebrands manufacture their own laptops. The few notable exceptions are IBM, Acer, Toshiba, Twinhead and Apple. Yet, even Toshiba and Apple do not make all of their own. All of the rest buy their laptops from what is called an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM). Then, they install the hard drive (usually an IBM, Hitachi, or Toshiba), processor (Pentium x, Celeron, or AMD) and system memory (SDRAM). Installing these last three components is very easy to do, and leaving these for "the last minute" allows for a wide range of custom configurations.

Once these companies add in these three components, they have a complete laptop. They then put their label on it and market it.

Each ODM sells its computers to several different OEMs.

For example an ODM named Compal (not to be confused with Compaq) makes the Dell Inspiron 5000, the PowerNotebooks.com PowerPro III:567, the Sceptre SoundX S6600 (14.1" ) and S6900 (15" ). These are all the same laptop, just with different names on them! Compal also makes some of the Hewlett Packard line of laptops, and they make the Sceptre SoundX 5200.

Quanta makes the Dell Latitude. GVC makes the Micron Transport Treck and Treck 2. Compaq is actually manufactured by companies called Inventec (Armada and Prosignia lines) and Arima (Presario line).

Sager Computers are made by Clevo (the 9820 and 2850) and Kapok (the rest of the line). Clevo and Kapok are different Divisions of the same company and are also one of the largest, and best, in the world. Other ODM names are Mitech, Kapok, Clevo, FIC, Twinhead, and Uniwil--just to name a few.