meaning of oem

[CaVoLo]

this probably sounds retarded to most of you but please tell me the meaning of oem....
hey we all had to learn it sometime :-)

thanks

[Jaykay]

well im not sure what it stands for but i know that an OEM company are like, the standard/default suppliers of a product for a certain other product. Like ATI used to be for macs, as standard ya get an ATI card and youd have to specially get a different one if you wanted something like a 3dfx card or something as ATI were the OEM graphics card company for apple at the time.

[cb911]

i think it means Original Equipment Manufacturer. not 100% sure though.

[Jesus on OSX]

Original Equipment Manufacturer

It's when a company uses 3rd party parts to build/sell products under it's own brand.