ASUS CEO promises “secret weapon” to vanquish iPad 2

If you can’t beat Apple outright, hint that you can. That seems to be the strategy adopted by ASUS CEO Jonney Shih, who claims the company has a “secret weapon” it is readying to take on the second-gen iPad 2. Refusing to detail the surprise, Shih told Computerworld that the company’s clandestine advantage is “something we have not shown at this time but closer to the launch time we will show.”


Pressed as to whether the “secret weapon” is a component or a tablet, Shih played coy, allowing only that “I think it’s best not to say now. You will have to wait until the launch.”
Interestingly, Shih also alluded to knowing some of the iPad 2 details already, including “what kind of processor they chose,” though it’s unclear whether this is based on ASUS’ own investigations or the same rumors publicly circulating. Still, the CEO reckons NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 – as in the Eee Pad Slider and Eee Pad Transform – still puts them ahead of the game, particularly when it comes to graphics, and that “to really compete it will take [Apple] some time.”