Asustek makes a MacBook Air competitor called the Zenbook. The Chinese manufacturer of the Zenbook, Pegatron Technology, just got an order to make iPhones for Apple. I bet you can see where this is going.
9to5Mac is reporting that Apple has allegedly laid down an ultimatum to Pegatron – either stop making the Zenbook or lose their business. It apparently worked as Pegatron will stop making the Zenbook at the end of march.
Asustek will be forced to outsource Zenbook production to either Compal Electronics or Wistron. This comes off the news that Pegatron only recently began making iPhones and hopes to make iPads in the future. Pegatron was listed with Foxconn as the two manufacturers behind the elusive iPad 3 that is rumored to launch in March.
What makes this worse is that Pegatron just received orders for at least five Ultrabooks from second-tier brands. They were set to ship in April or May.
9to5Mac points out the irony behind all this in that Pegatron used to be a part of Asustek. They became a separate, but still owned by Asustek, entity in 2007. In June 2010, Pegatron officially split from Asustek to become its own independent entity.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment. We’ll update the story if we hear back.