Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microtek


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. There's basically only one usable "delete" opinion here, by DGG. The others are so peremptory as to be near invalid.  Sandstein  12:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Microtek
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No Citations and Extrenal References Achintgupta2017 (talk) 05:44, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
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Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The book notes: "Taiwan imported its scanner industry from the United States. The founders of Microelectronics Technology (Microtek) were U.S.-educated Chinese engineers who worked together in the 1970s on document engineering, laser printers, and scanners at Xerox. They were also among Taiwan's earliest returning entrepreneurs: they established Microtek International in Hsinchu in 1980 with a liaison office, Microtek Lab, in California. Microtek's first products were in-circuit microprocessor emulators, which sold well and won a prize for the best product at Wescom (a computer industry trade show) in 1981. The founders soon recruited additional returnees from Xerox and by 1983 had broadened the product line to include scanners. Microtek went on to produce the world's first 300-dpi black-and-white sheet-fed scanner in 1985 and remained an industry leader throughout the 1990s by introducing affordable scanners using innovative software and design. One of Microtek's biggest initial challenges was the absence of capable suppliers for manufacturing scanners in Taiwan—an especially pressing problem because their main competitors were Japanese firms that had access to a sophisticated domestic infrastructure. Founder Robert Hsieh and his fellow organizers decided to nurture the development of local subcontractors and suppliers. They located a local company that was making low-end lenses and helped it upgrade its capabilities, first by developing a Microtek lens design and then transferring the technology to the firm (one Microtek founder holds fifteen patents in lens design). Over time, they helped to create an independent, world-class lens manufacturer. Similarly, there was no high-precision machining available in Taiwan in the early 1980s, so Microtek's founders worked closely with local machine shops to manually upgrade their capabilities. Hsieh reports that they couldn't initially hold them to U.S. standards, but they worked out ways to jointly develop products with lower tolerances that still achieved high performance levels. As a result, Microtek was the first company to be awarded ISO 9001 certification for its scanners. By 1988, when Microtek went public in one of the first technology IPOs in Taiwan (soon after Acer), the firm had helped to create a sophisticated domestic scanner infrastructure. The only components that were not locally available were charge-coupled devices, but the large numbers of competitors in the sector ensured continued supply for Taiwanese producers. ... Microtek alone accounts for over 20 percent of the world scanner market, and it has diversified into related digital image processing products such as digital cameras, LCD flat-panel monitors, LCD projectors, and PDAs. The firm's commitment to advancing technology is evident in its two R&D labs (one in California and one in Taiwan), which have facilities dedicated to optics design, mechanical and electronic engineering, software development, and product quality. ..."  The article notes: "Some of the building blocks of the economy are on display at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, a few hours drive south-west of Taipei. Microtek International, a maker of desktop image scanners and digital cameras, is typical of a successful Taiwanese company. It is compact, with 1200 employees and paid-in capital of $US109 million, but it has international reach with subsidiaries in the US and Europe and market presence with more than 12 percent of worldwide market share for desktop image scanners. Microtek is a product leader and in 1984 introduced the world's first image scanner for personal computing. But there is no room for complacency in a changing market, with the company experiencing a drastic fall in prices for scanners and computer monitors." <li> The article notes: "When a booming high-technology company in Taiwan called Microtek acquired a Hillsboro firm in 1990, Oregon pundits predicted a wave of Taiwanese investment. But the wave, expected as Japanese investment ebbed, never hit the Northwest. Taiwanese firms were too busy surging the other direction -- into mainland China, which suddenly opened for business. That doesn't mean that Microtek regrets acquiring Microcosm Inc., a spin-off of Tektronix Inc. and Intel Corp. ... A group of Taiwanese entrepreneurs with U.S. business and engineering degrees founded Microtek in 1980. The firm became one of the first occupants of Hsinchu Science Park, a landscaped oasis south of Taipei established by the government as a Taiwanese Silicon Valley. The start-up challenged Intel, developing in-circuit emulators for a fraction of the cost of those sold by the semiconductor firm. The emulators allow engineers to test and correct problems in computers and other electronics designed around chips made by Intel and other firms. Microtek opened offices in Los Angeles and Dusseldorf, Germany. Then the company acquired Microcosm for its expertise in emulating chips developed by Intel in Hillsboro."</li> <li> The article notes: "Once upon a time, there were seven extremely bright young Chinese computer specialists holding well-paying jobs with the Xerox Corporation in California. But all of them dreamed of returning home to develop their own company. So one day they quit Xerox and did just that. Now they are being hailed here as pioneers of a trend that could eventually plug the longstanding 'brain drain.' In 1980, the seven formed Microtek International Corporation, based in the new Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park. In the first full year of operation (1981) they earned around $700,000. This year the prediction is $2.5 million. Ten products have already been marketed, and 16 more are planned this year. Microtek's biggest success has been with a micro in-circuit emulator (MICE), which enables computer engineers to develop and evaluate hardware and software programs for microprocessor-based products"</li> <li> The article notes: "Looking ahead, tiny Microtek Lab of Gardena thinks its new desk-top image scanner could play a big role in the burgeoning computer peripherals market. The MS-200 -- which enables the personal computer to grasp an outside image, whether photograph or chart, and merge it with internal text -- did not hit the chalkboard until last February. The first prototype was not rolled out until June. But Microtek will debut its image scanner at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas next week. And among those who have already expressed an interest in the product are International Business Machines Corp. and Apple Computer. ... The four-year-old electronics firm, with only 25 employees in Gardena and about 20 more sales representatives nationwide, admits it could not muster a broad marketing campaign of its own. In fact, Hsieh -- pronounced 'Shay' -- is one of just a handful of American-trained electronics engineers from Taiwan who are the nucleus of Microtek Lab in Gardena, and its corporate parent, Microtek International, in Taiwan. Several of the engineers, including Hsieh, worked together at Xerox Corp. in El Segundo and at other Southern California electronics concerns before the founding of Microtek in 1980."</li> <li> The article notes: "A high-tech company that makes equipment to diagnose computer problems has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges it violated a 1995 Clinton administration trade embargo on selling computer equipment to Iran. Microtek International Development Systems, a division of Microtek International of Taiwan, manufactures computer-processor emulators, which mimic the operation of computer chips at a slower speed so operators can troubleshoot problems."</li> <li> The article notes: "The Securities and Futures Bureau of the Financial Supervisory Commission has suddenly tightened foreign issuer stock policies. According to reports, this situation is rooted in the ongoing tug of war over Taiwan issuer stock negotiations in the cross-strait service trade agreement. China insists Chinese IPOs employ a “mainland” intermediary. Taiwan has refused to concede this issue leading to deadlocked negotiations. The fallout caused Microtek to withdraw from Taiwan to list in South Korea. Currently there has not been easing in foreign issuer stock policy. A number of other mainland issuers have also filed to withdraw their listing applications. According to reports, Microtek will list on the Korea Exchange and others are looking to the Hong Kong Exchange."</li> <li> The article notes: "Here, you will meet people like Bobo Wang, 40, a UCLA-trained computer expert who left a promising career at the Xerox Corp. in El Segundo, in the Los Angeles area, to co-found Microtek electronics. Started only six years ago, the company now designs and builds state-of-the-art computer-programming equipment, image scanners and computerized factory devices that are sold around the world. ... The science park made sense to Wang and his four Microtek partners -- all of them native Taiwanese who received graduate degrees in the United States. In addition, the Microtek partners were able to start the company on a $1 million investment borrowed from the father of one of the partners. Wang said they would have needed three to four times that amount to set up shop in California's Silicon Valley. 'The money was planned to carry us through for two to three years with 20 engineers,' said Wang. 'The costs were lower here, and the chances of success were better.'"</li> <li> The article notes: "Microtek International Inc. is the best example of Taiwan-born engineers who came home to set up shop in Sinchu. Of the five who founded the company in 1980, three had been senior engineers for the Xerox Corporation. Bobo Wang, the 36-year-old president of Microtek, explained why he came back. The seed money of $1 million goes a lot further in Taiwan than it would in the United States, he explained. Today Microtek's main product is a device used to develop microcomputer systems. Together, Microtek and a spinoff company that does the final assembly of specialized numerically controlled machines employ 75 workers. More than 50 of them are research and development engineers. 'We could never put together a staff of this size and quality for so little money in America,' Mr. Wang said."</li> <li> The article notes: "But unlike the vast majority of Taiwan's 'overseas Chinese,' Mr. Wang returned seven years ago, at the Government's behest. With four colleagues he founded a small computer company in the Government's high-tech industrial park in Hsinchu, an hour's drive from Taipei. In the next few weeks that company, Microtek, will go public and its founders and a few of its 400 employees will probably become overnight millionaires."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Microtek to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 07:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * Delete per WP:RS and WP:GNG Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 22:45, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * How does AnnaLee Saxenian's Harvard University Press-published book The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy not pass Identifying reliable sources? The book covers Microtek on four pages. How does that not pass Notability? Cunard (talk) 08:49, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. for violation of NOT ADVOCACY.  The article is essentially advertising. Advertising should be deleted, not fixed, when the article has no clean version.--it's particular folly to encourage it by trying to find reasons for keeping it when the notability is also marginal. Any gross violation of NOT is grounds for removal of an article regardless of other considerations. The rule for this is G11, and it should have been used.  DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I have rewritten the article. "Advertising should be deleted, not fixed, when the article has no clean version." – I disagree. Notable subjects should always be rewritten if possible, not deleted. Microtek is not a "marginally notable" company. It is covered in detail on four pages of a Harvard University Press book: <ul><li></li></ul> The book says, "Microtek alone accounts for over 20 percent of the world scanner market". A company with such a significant portion of the worldwide image scanner market has made a significant impact on the world and is clearly notable, not marginally notable. Cunard (talk) 08:49, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep – From the above, appears to meet WP:CORPDEPTH on a weaker level (can't access several of the sources above), and per WP:HEY per the article being entirely rewritten. North America1000 13:43, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep: Microtek seems to be a very important company that has had a significant influence on Taiwan's electronics industry. This would be like wanting to delete the article on Acer. This requires more Wikipedians to help rewrite and properly document the company's important contributions to Taiwan's industry and impact on the world. I am not experienced in writing articles but just now I read that in the year 1995 alone, Taiwan was responsible for making 60 percent of the entire world's scanners and Microtek alone accounted for 20% of that share so it seems important enough to warrant an article. Also Microtek helped establish Ulead Systems which is the first software company in Taiwan to be publically listed. Should Ulead Systems article be deleted as well since it is a stub article? I'm sure there are many more noteworthy details to be found about Microtek but maybe nobody is interested to contribute to the article. That would be a shame. &mdash; Czgsq (talk) 11:03, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep appears to a notable player in the 1980-90's computer scanning industry. This and this are two book sources detailing its work. Fuebaey (talk) 03:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep There are at least two sources that meet the criteria for establishing notability as per Fuebaey and Cunard above. Although many of Cunard's do not meet the criteria, the two listed by Fuebaey are good. -- HighKing ++ 11:39, 5 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.