Trouble seen in Taiwan's tech sector

Taipei

WITH its offices sporting wood flooring, a roof painted bright orange and conference rooms named after target markets in South-east Asia, AppWorks, one of Taiwan's few startup accelerators, has the look and feel of the American counterparts it's modelled on.

But its founder, Jamie Lin, 37, does not sound much like the optimistic entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Instead, he is glum about the future for Taiwan's tech industry. "It's like you're riding on the Titanic, and you know it's going to hit an iceberg, and you're trying to turn the rudder, but you know it's not turning fast enough," he said.

Five years ago, Taiwan's tech industry was riding high. The device maker HTC had surpassed Apple to become the largest smartphone vendor in the US, while the computer company Acer had leapfrogged Dell to become the world's second-largest personal computer maker. Such successes helped lift Taiwan's economy, building on the country's longt…