Acer's Full House

There are very few times when you get a company that has all of the pieces,financial muscle, innovative technology, and, most importantly, an absolute, unbending, steel-like commitment to establishing a long-term relationship with heartland channel partners serving the SMB market. Acer definitely has the right ingredients. Look at the numbers: Acer is a $13 billion giant that has a long legacy of competing on razor-thin margins and can run and gun with any PC competitor.

On the technology side, Acer is an underrated innovator. It was one of the first to deliver a convertible Tablet PC, the platform of choice when Microsoft launched the Tablet OS. Acer is using its R&D dollars to bring a new wave of cutting-edge products to the U.S. market that are best-in-class, including a new Ferrari 3000 Notebook entry that is set to be unveiled in the next several weeks. The $1,899 Ferrari, the only notebook in the world licensed to sport the red Ferrari color, has the kind of design style that Apple has used to great advantage. And the technology under the hood is an AMD Athlon XP-M processor 2500++and an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics chip.

On the channel side, Acer's commitment is unmatched. Both Acer Chairman and CEO Stan Shih, one of the legends of this business who started Acer at the dawn of the microprocessor era and has led the company for an amazing 27 years, and Acer President J.T. Wang, who is set to take the reins from Shih late next year, are vocal channel proponents who have recently issued high-profile challenges to the direct rumblings of IBM and HP. Shih and Wang aim to increase Acer's U.S. sales by six times by the end of 2006 to $1.8 billion, up from only $300 million today. That is no small bet. But given the cards Acer is holding, it is a bet that is likely to pay off, both for Acer and its channel partners.

What do you think of Acer? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].