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In Win Development, Inc. (), formerly rendered as In-Win Development and commonly shortened to In Win or InWin, is a Taiwanese
computer case A computer case, also known as a computer chassis, is the enclosure that contains most of the hardware of a personal computer. The components housed inside the case (such as the CPU, motherboard, memory, mass storage devices, power supply unit a ...
and computer power supply manufacturer. In Win was founded in 1985 and has since opened multiple factories and headquarters internationally.


Corporate history

In Win Development was founded by Vincent Lai in 1985 in
Taoyuan, Taiwan Taoyuan () is a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in northwestern Taiwan, neighboring New Taipei City to the north-east, Yilan County to the south-east, and Hsinchu County to the south-west. Taoyuan District ...
, with an initial investment capital of $200,000. Originally only a manufacturer of computer cases, In Win added
power supplies A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, current, and frequency to power the load. As a res ...
production lines to its Taoyuan facility in the late 1980s and dabbled with manufacturing disk storage equipment and joysticks in the early 1990s. In Win has four international branch offices between the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and China. Europe and North America represented In Win's biggest importers of computer cases, purchasing respectively 40 percent and 30 percent of their output in 2004; the rest of their output was purchased evenly between outside territories—chiefly Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Roughly 70 percent of the company's overall products were delivered to
original equipment manufacturer An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
s and
original design manufacturer An original design manufacturer is a company that designs and manufactures a product that is eventually rebranded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the firm that owns or licenses the brand to produce products while having to engage in ...
s, including
Ingram Micro Ingram Micro is an American distributor of information technology products and services. The company is based in Irvine, California, U.S. and has operations around the world. History Ingram Micro's origins trace back to the founding of distrib ...
, Time Computer,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
,
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
, and
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
. In Win grew from having 60 employees in its Taoyuan facility in 1990 to 2,000 total employees globally on its payroll by 2004. Its engineering department staffed 80 employees in 2003; all engineers by that point had 15 to 20 years of hands-on and
computer-aided Computer-aided or computer-assisted is an adjectival phrase that hints of the use of a computer as an indispensable tool in a certain field, usually derived from more traditional fields of science and engineering. Instead of the phrase computer-a ...
experience designing cases. The software the engineers used to design cases at that point included
AutoCAD AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...
, TurboCAD, Espirit, and
Pro/E Creo Parametric, formerly known, together with Creo Elements/Pro, as Pro/Engineer and Wildfire, is a solid modeling or CAD, CAM, CAE, and associative 3D modeling application, running on Microsoft Windows. Creo Parametric should not to be confu ...
. The company planned to hire up to 500 more employees by 2005 and to open up a R&D laboratory in Mainland China in 2004. Having established its American headquarters in the
City of Industry, California City of Industry is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is almost entirely industrial, containing over 3,000 businesses employing 67,000 people, with only 264 residents as of th ...
, by the late 1990s, In Win leased another 50,000 office in a different part of the city in the fourth quarter of 2002. By 2012 the company began primarily targeting the video-gaming demographic, as well as PC case modders, although OEMs and systems integrators both remained critical customers for the company into the 2020s. The company reached a peak revenue of
NT$ The New Taiwan dollar (code: TWD; symbol: NT$, also abbreviated as NT) is the official currency of Taiwan. The New Taiwan dollar has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollars ...
4 billion (US$124 million) in 2008. Sales dropped 47 percent through 2016 to $2.1 billion however.


Manufacturing facilities

The company relies on steel imported from Japan and Taiwan for use in its mid- and mini-tower cases. Formerly outsourcing the
injection molding Injection moulding (U.S. spelling: injection molding) is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting molten material into a mould, or mold. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials mainly including metals (for ...
of its plastic parts, In Win purchased plastic injection machinery for its own 4,600 Taoyuan factory between 1996 and 1997. In 2000, it opened up a 17,480 plant nearby this factory in Taoyuan. Four final assembly lines 120 meters in total produced 16,000 cases per daily shift in 2004. In 2002, the company opened up a 202,400 factory in
Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
. Initially meant for the production of In Win's computer cases, this factory branched out to providing mechanical and electrical manufacturing for systems integrators and OEMs. In Win planned to provide the same OEM services out of its Taiwan facilities by 2005. The company achieved a monthly production output of 350,000 and 400,000 PC and server cases by the end of the third quarter of 2004—70 percent of which comprising tower cases, 20 percent comprising desktop and small-form-factor cases, and 10 percent comprising server and other industrial cases.


Products

In Win was noted for its ornate case designs of some models from the mid-2000s onward; for example, the company's GunDam case introduced in 2008 was inspired by the
mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...
franchise of the same name. Many of In Win's cases incorporate motherboard trays to facilitate upgrades and servicing. The company was also the first to incorporate
USB-C USB-C (properly known as USB Type-C) is a 24-pin USB connector system with a rotationally symmetrical connector. The designation C refers only to the connector's physical configuration or form factor and should not be confused with the conne ...
ports on
front panel A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, digit and symbol displays, to ...
s for a barebones computer case. Some of In Win's more elaborate cases include the H-Frame 2.0, designed around nine stacked sheets of aluminum sandwiched between
tempered glass Tempered or toughened glass is a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempering puts the outer surfaces into compression and the interior into tension. ...
—allowing air to pass completely through the case—and the H-Tower case, which has mechanisms to open up the case via a button or a smartphone app. The company additionally sponsors PC modding competitions in the United States. In 2017, the company released another limited-edition case—quantity 200—made of cast aluminum and 5 mm-thick tempered glass, designed large enough to run extensive
water-cooled Cooling tower and water discharge of a nuclear power plant Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components and industrial equipment. Evaporative cooling using water is often more efficient than air cooling. Water is inexpensive and non ...
setups. In Win, as with several other computer case manufacturers, skipped over the proposed low-profile motherboard form factor NLX in the late 1990s, citing low demand. They embraced the contemporaneous
microATX In computer design, microATX (sometimes referred to as μATX, uATX or mATX) is a standard motherboard form factor introduced in December 1997. The maximum size of a microATX motherboard is . However, there are examples of motherboards using micr ...
specification, however, and in the late 2000s designed a modicum of microATX cases designed with optimal airflow and other thermal considerations for
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's
Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
CPU family.


Reception

In Win's 901
mini-ITX Mini-ITX is a motherboard form-factor, developed by VIA Technologies in 2001. They are commonly used in small-configured computer systems. Originally, they were a niche product, designed for fan-less cooling with a low power consumption archit ...
case received generally positive reviews in ''
Custom PC ''Custom PC'' (usually abbreviated to 'CPC') is a UK-based computer magazine created by Mr Freelance Limited, and originally published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. It's aimed at PC hardware enthusiasts, covering topics such as modding, overcloc ...
'' and '' Computer Shopper''—the latter calling it "the rarest of things—a genuinely attractive PC case" but with "some annoyances", while the former deemed it "more of a lifestyle chassis than a high-performance one". ''Computer Shopper'' in particular praised the placement of its slimline
optical drive In computing, an optical disc drive is a disk drive, disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives ...
slot underneath the power supply housing "so as not to spoil the case's smooth front" and wrote that the interior left plenty of room for large graphics cards but wrote that the matte plastic interior was vulnerable to scratching. ''Custom PC'' meanwhile found the case thermally problematic for CPUs and GPUs with the stock fans but said that aftermarket fans resolved this and were easy to install. The magazine also praised its
cable management Cable management refers to management of electrical or optical cable in a cabinet or an installation. The term is used for products, workmanship or planning. Cables can easily become tangled, making them difficult to work with, sometimes res ...
implements and wrote that the clearance for the power supply and GPU was "massive", albeit not spacious enough for large GPUs should a 120 mm water cooler be installed to the front intake mount. ''Custom PC'' called the company's GT1 ATX case "rock-solid" in build quality but with some "some sloppy design decisions", particularly regarding the front panel's cabling and the dust filters being made from "flimsy material rather than slide-out plastic". The reviewer called the interior "sensibly laid-out" and well-accommodated for cable management but found the drive cages' inability to be removed completely preventing it a 240 mm cooling radiator from being installed at the top of the chassis, although one cage could be slid out of the way for installing taller graphics cards. In Win's Chopin line of small-form-factor mini-ITX cases were measured by ''Custom PC'' to be only slightly larger than the motherboard in surface area and requiring a custom power supply unit. The reviewer praised the build quality and quiet operation but noted that discrete GPUs were uninstallable due to its diminutive size.


See also

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Corsair Gaming Corsair Gaming, Inc. is an American computer peripherals and hardware company headquartered in Milpitas, California. Previously Corsair Components and Corsair Memory, it was incorporated in California in January 1994 as Corsair Microsystems and r ...
*
Clevo Clevo () is a Taiwanese OEM/ ODM computer manufacturer which produces laptop computers exclusively. They sell barebone laptops chassis ( barebooks) to value-added resellers who build customized laptops for individual customers. History Clevo was ...
*
DTK Computer DTK Computer is the name for international branches of Datatech Enterprises, a Taiwanese computer manufacturer. Founded in 1981, the company was an early supplier of peripherals for IBM PCs as well as PC compatible motherboards. In the late 198 ...


Notes


Citations


References

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Further reading

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External links

* {{Electronics industry in Taiwan 1985 establishments in Taiwan Companies based in Taoyuan City Computer companies established in 1985 Taiwanese brands Computer enclosure companies Electronics companies of Taiwan