"Hot from Hercules:
Hercules is no more in the videocard market. The official pressrelease is not out yet, but I just got of the phone and was allowed to publish this around 4 (16.00 GMT+1).
They are also out of the LCD market. The word is that on the 3d market they got to little workspace to work with. ATI is not willing to let Hercules build products according to the Hercules way.
[update 2]
But on the LCD market, high level LCD panels manufacturers (such as Samsung with whom Hercules don't work anymore since last year and Hydis = Hyundai displays with whom we were working) are keeping there lcd panels for there own brand lcd monitors. Which is quite normal.
So there isn't any restrictions from LCD manufacturers.
The fact is that Hercules always targetted the high level consumer market
with their monitors and as there are none high-level lcd panels anymore, Hercules could have bought mid- range or entry-level panels, but this wouldn't the answer the expectations of our core target.
The Hercules videocards always differed from others, by special BIOS, clockspeed and/or ramspeed. As you may have noticed is that Hercules ATI based products were not really different from other brands. The reason behind it was ATI.
[update 1]
Hercules will still give full customer support as long as needed for their excisting customers. So if you have a Hercules board, no need to worry on warranty and other services.
[editor's note]
There is nobody to blame here, as I can understand the way ATI works. From ATI's point of view is control very important. With control you are certain that your products are always on the same (high) level across the different vendors.
From Hercules point of view, I can understand that you want to differ yourself. The market is tough enough, how else would you survive? On pricepoint alone? That was not what Hercules was about."
Beyond3D
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