One of the leading Taiwanese PC companies is planning an aggressive attack on the in-car entertainment market.

Micro-Star, a computer company dating back to 1986, realised that many of its core technologies were moving into in-car entertainment and so, two years ago, purchased Funtoro, a company specialising in that market.

Though the Funtoro products still account for less than 2% of Micro-Star’s revenue, work in developing these products using Micro-Star’s existing technology has given the company confidence that it can now attack the market.

“We purchased Funtoro because we saw that car electronics and PCs were moving together,” said Vincent Lai, assistant vice-president of marketing. “Its car infotainment products are now benefiting from our existing products. Though less than 2% of our revenue is from car infotainment, we expect to increase that rapidly and that will help us to bring down costs.”

The company has more than 200 people focussing on research and development in car infotainment and already has five lines ready to take to market – media-on-demand, audio-on-demand, infotainment, VIP coach and passenger cars. The firm also makes and sells accessories for all these sections.

The media-on-demand line is aimed at buses and coaches and can support more than 50 back-of-seat screens. As well as films and TV shows, passengers can browse the internet and buy goods using the screen.

“We can also integrate an external fleet management system into this,” said marketing manager Chrissy Lin.

The audio-on-demand range is aimed at buses and trains, including high-speed railways. The wireless system can support 180 users simultaneously, each of whom can enjoy up to five audio channels that can be coming from sources such as a radio, CD changer and even an IPod.

The infotainment range is also aimed at the bus market and supports various connection methods such as Wifi, Bluetooth, GPRS, CDMA and 3G. This will also work with a fleet management system and is operated from a touch console. The drop-down monitors are controlled by the driver or assistant and can broadcast real-time advertisements, news, weather and information. The driver can use the same system for traffic information.

The VIP coach system is an upgraded version of the media-on-demand platform that supports wireless internet, games and external satellite navigation systems. Up to 12 monitors can be supported and is aimed at the people-mover large car market.

Finally, the company has its standard passenger car system that supports three monitors with each capable of showing separate content, including films, games, music and satellite navigation. It can also be linked to accessories such as rear-view cameras.