VIA has named Phoenix as the BIOS software supplier for its new P4XB line of Pentium 4 mobos.

The Phoenix tie-in shows VIA's committment to building a world class motherboard business, the Taiwanese chip designer says.

It will be interesting to see how VIA carries this off - the company risks upsetting chipset customers, largely Taiwanese mobo makers. No-one likes to compete with their supplier, after all.

Intel does CPUs, chipsets and mainboards too, but it can through sheer size override any conflicts of interest that trade customers might conceive. ®

Phoenix press release.