CEO KC Liu revealed the new focus and structure of Advantech before a crowd of over 500 partners from around the globe at the convention center in Suzhou, China (just outside Shanghai) Oct. 29-30. The theme is going from “Trusted ePlatform” to “Enabling a Smarter Planet.” Advantech is, at its core, an electronics component supplier. It is known for embedded computing, industrial computers, networking infrastructure, displays and data acquisition I/O. But it has discovered business in many vertical sectors. Therefore it is pushing its partners to develop expertise in solution selling to specific verticals in addition to selling volume components.
Liu explained that Advantech will be structured with two major devisions: Embedded Design (trusted ePlatform and services) and Branding & Solutions (Enabling a Smarter Planet).

Quoting from IBM study, the smarter planet is driven by the trends that the world is becoming Instrumented, Interconnected, Intelligent. The point is that Advantech contributes products and services in each of the three areas.

Advantech has identified six major vertical markets in which it seeks to focus. These are medical and healthcare, factory and machine automation, power and energy, transportation, industrial mobile computing and retail and hospitality.

In a later discussion with the press, Liu expressed belief that the new focused embedded services group–dedicated engineering staff to work with major customers on system architecture design and deployment–holds great promise for growth in the near future.