What factors are likely to determine the company’s success?

Born in Shanghai and living much of his early life in Hong Kong, Barry Lam is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Quanta Computer Inc., the world’s largest maker of notebook computers, with factories in both Taiwan and China. Quanta is now also the world’s largest manufacturer of data storage servers. It has over 30,000 employees, of which some 3,500 are engineers. In 2006, Fortune Magazine recognized Quanta as one of the Fortune Global 500 companies. And yet few will recognize his name or that of his company because he keeps a low profi le. This is because Quanta is a contract manufacturer – a company that designs and manufactures electronic equipment, but leaves the branding and marketing to others – Apple, Dell, HP, Compaq, Sony, Toshiba and many others. Indeed, Taiwanese companies now manufacture over half of the world’s laptop computers, with Quanta being the largest, accounting for more than 30 per cent of the notebook market.