U.S. and Asian demand, he says, was broad-based, with particularly solid growth for analog chips, embedded controllers and programmable logic devices.

FORBES: Update: Avnet CEO Sees More Growth In Corporate IT Spending

And to make matters worse, the rise of personal digital assistants, palmtops, embedded controllers, etc. promises in the next few years to render the PC industry into a backwater business filled with commodity products--hardly the place to be a pricey innovator.

FORBES: Apple R.I.P.

The company, which began its life as a division of Motorola that was spun off in 2004, focuses on the created of embedded microprocessors, controllers and sensors in a number of applications.

FORBES: Freescale Semiconductor Wants You To Learn How To Program Robots

Using an embedded mouse--the Compaq's resembles the joypads on game controllers, while the Vestel's looks like a notebook touchpad--I was soon operating in a custom version of Internet Explorer 4.01.

CNN: Analysis: Are PCs toast? Internet appliances arrive