ASUS and Acer are two companies that I have an incredibly difficult time trying to understand. Their computers are fine, but their respective mobile divisions? In one year they’ll each ship about as many smartphones and tablets as Apple sells during the first 72 hours during a new iPhone launch. Sure, both of them have innovated in their own ways. Acer with the gorgeous S7, ASUS with the netbook and the Transformer, but can these small players stand alone?

According to Unwired View, which points to an article from the China Times, the heads of Acer and ASUS are both open minded to joining forces. Both are Taiwanese companies. Both have the same competitors. Both need quite a bit of help. Acer’s designers, in my honest opinion, are far superior to those at ASUS. On the other hand, ASUS tends to be more daring and invest in product categories that are untested.

Should Samsung or Lenovo worry if Acer and ASUS merge? I hope so, because Taiwan has almost everything they need to dominate the global mobile device market in a way that can’t be underestimated. They have the factories, they make the components, they have the engineers. Yes, they’re a little bit more expensive than China, but so what?