Is VIA exiting the chipset business? Citing difficulty competing with both Intel and AMD in similar markets, it seems VIA has stated that they see “no future” in continuing to develop and manufacture motherboard chipsets, instead opting to focus on developing processor development. As a result they apparently have ceased developing chipsets, conserving talent by taking chipset technicians over to ASMedia.

I'm not much of a fan of limited choice – and VIA leaving will have the effect of reducing choice. Even if they do not hold a massive share of the market, they were still able to consistently help motherboard manufacturers get very cheap boards out the door. It also brings up the question of what the destination platform for future VIA CPUs, post-Nano, will be. Interestingly, a VP for VIA commented that the reason for the company getting into the CPU market was due to them seeing the chipset business eventually dry up.