Acer expands through Best Buy
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(InfoWorld) - Taiwanese PC vendor Acer Inc. has started selling laptop PCs at popular retailer Best Buy Co. Inc., expanding its presence in the U.S. market. Best Buy is featuring Acer laptop PCs with a brand spotlight notice on its Web site. All five of the Acer laptop PCs on offer at Best Buy are priced under US$900. The most expensive of the five is the Acer Aspire AS5610-4537, which runs on an Intel Corp. Core Duo processor. It costs $849.99. The lowest-priced Acer laptop at Best Buy is the Aspire 420 notebook, AS3680-2022, which runs on an Intel Celeron M and retails for $499.99. According to the Web site, the notebook is already sold out. A similar Aspire 420, the AS3690-2710, runs for $699.99 with a larger, 15.4-inch screen. Acer has targeted the U.S. and China as two major potential growth markets for the company, and has invested more resources into the two countries over the past few years. Acer is the world's fourth largest PC vendor by revenue and the fastest growing PC vendor in the world among the top 10.
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(InfoWorld) - Retail consumers in the U.S. could begin to see great deals on computer purchases as PC vendors get more competitive in the wake ofÂ Acer's announcement on Monday that it plans to buy Gateway. Acer will probably try to reinvigorate the Gateway brand, using spiffier designs and faster processors in an effort to add cachet to Gateway and eMachines labels which are often seen as "bottom dwellers" selling low-cost PCs, said J.P. Gownder, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. In announcing the deal, Acer President Gianfranco Lanci said he planned to preserve Gateway's "powerful and unique brand" in order to cover a variety of consumer market segments, differentiating the two brands over time in an effort to reach a broader variety of consumers. By announcing its plan to concentrate on the U.S. retail market, Acer is signaling that it will not challenge far larger vendors like Hewlett-Packard and Dell for corporate enterprise deals. Acer also said on Monday that it planned to divest Gateway's professional business division, and was already in talks with a potential buyer. That strategy will probably have a far greater impact on Acer's long-time rival Lenovo than on larger vendors, Gownder said. "For HP and Dell, it's going to be two years before this makes an impact on their business," Gownder said. "Lenovo is the company that really loses here, especially if Acer is able to pick up Packard Bell and get a foothold in Europe, as well." On Aug. 7, Lenovo Group announced it had agreed to buy Packard Bell, but that deal appears to be scuttled: part of Monday's news was thatÂ Gateway will exercise its right of first refusal to acquire shares in Packard Bell's parent company. In addition to tripping up its rival Lenovo, Acer will gain valuable retail leverage in the U.S., including Gateway's online retail site and its shelf space in major retailers like Best Buy Co. Inc., Gownder said. Still, Acer faces a large workload in creating a successful merger with Gateway before it begins to reap profits from the move. "Acer has made a smart, imperfect decision. But from what's available to them, it was the best move on the chessboard," Gownder said. Acer now faces pressure to duplicate its success among small business customers and Asian markets in the competitive U.S. retail market, other analysts said. Acquiring Gateway could give it the leverage to succeed, but only if Acer completes a difficult merger, said Charles Smulders, an analyst and managing vice president at Gartner Inc. First, Acer must make sure it retains Gateway's staff in the U.S. channel and retail sectors, while divesting the money-losing professional business, he said. That move would have little effect on Gateway's small stake of the corporate enterprise market, but a larger impact among its government and academic customers. Then, Acer could dedicate its engineers to improving Gateway's image as an economy brand. "The Gateway brand is very well known, but people are unclear what it stands for. So that is one challenge Acer will face," Smulders said. The company will probably try to establish a reputation for using the latest technology, as opposed to marketing Gateway as the brand with the best technical support or the lowest prices, he said. To Acer's advantage, Gateway has been cutting costs for five years already, so that will be a much easier task than HP faced when it bought Compaq, Smulders said. "I certainly think HP will be taking notes, simply because Acer has been gaining ground so fast, particularly outside the U.S. If Acer can pull this off, it would be a serious challenge to HP." HP declined to comment on the possible implications of the deal. "HP does not comment on the business strategies of its competitors," said corporate spokeswoman Emma McCulloch. Â
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TAIPEI/SHANGHAI  - Taiwan's Acer Inc will buy Gateway Inc for $710 million to double its U.S. presence and unseat China's Lenovo as the world's No. 3 PC maker, while dealing a blow to its efforts to grow in Europe.
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Taiwanese PC maker Acer Inc. will acquire Gateway Inc. for US$710 million, Acer announced Monday.
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PC vendor has started selling notebook PCs at popular retailer Best Buy.
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BREAKING NEWS - Global #3 PC manufacturer Acer has reached an agreement to acquire Gateway, America's #3 manufacturer, for $710 million. And in a possibly contingent move, Gateway will use some of that immediate cash infusion to exercise its right to preclude Lenovo from acquiring Packard Bell from California investor Lap Shun Hui, who purchased it from NEC just last year.
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(InfoWorld) - Acer's planned $710 million acquisitionÂ of U.S. PC vendor GatewayÂ won antitrust approval in the U.S. as the clock struck midnight Monday, Gateway said. The time marked the end of a 30-day waiting period in which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission or the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice may intervene or request additional time to review the deal for possible antitrust violations. Not all transactions face antitrust scrutiny by the two U.S. agencies. Acer, of Hsichih, Taiwan, was forced to file with the agencies to notify them of its intention to buy Gateway and provide details of the proposed transaction due to the size of the deal. At the end of the day on Monday, the waiting period ended, Gateway said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "The closing of the transaction remains subject to other customary conditions, including regulatory approvals in other jurisdictions which [Acer] anticipates will be satisfied over the next several weeks," Gateway said. Acer agreed to buy GatewayÂ in August. Once the acquisition closes, Acer will become the world's third largest PC vendor by shipments, at around 20 million desktops and laptops a year, and it will be transformed into a company with different PC brands. The boards of directors at both companies have already signed off on the agreement. Â
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(InfoWorld) - People fearing they might miss Gateway's signature black-and-white dairy cow PC boxes after the company is acquired by Acer Inc. have little reason to worry: Acer not only plans to keep the Gateway Inc. brand just the way it is, the Taiwanese company hopes to expand it. "A strong U.S. brand such as Gateway's can be expanded overseas into other markets," said Gianfranco Lanci, president of Acer, in a video feed at the Taipei news conference to announce the deal. Acer's determination to grow the brand should be some relief to American users. Gateway is the fourth biggest PC brand in the U.S., and popular among consumers. But until now, Acer has sold all of its products under its own name. Its strategy going forward is to start using multiple brands in all areas of the world, including the Gateway brand, as well as eMachines and possibly Packard Bell.Â Gateway plans to buy Packard Bell BV, which would ultimately end up as another Acer brand once the Acer-Gateway deal is finalized. Going forward, Acer plans to combine the talents of each company in order to expand product offerings for users. For example, Gateway is strong in desktop monitors, where Acer is weak, so Acer will use some Gateway technology to improve its offerings, said Lanci. The two companies will see where they can share designs and technology to improve their entire desktop and laptop PC line-ups, and expand this product cooperation to Packard Bell if a deal for the company is made. The deal could also mean more PC bargains for users. Becoming larger means Acer can gain better volume discounts when negotiating with parts suppliers. In addition, competition with Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. should remain fierce, and the companies all work hard to keep prices low. Acer agreed to buy Gateway in an all-cash deal valued at US$710 million. The two companies combined will become the world's third largest PC vendor by shipments, at around 20 million desktops and laptops a year, and will transform Acer into a multibrand company. The Acer-Gateway deal still faces regulatory and shareholder scrutiny before being finalized. The boards of directors of both companies have already signed off on the agreement. Acer expects to gain $150 million worth of efficiencies via the Gateway deal, in expanding product lines, cross-selling products, cost cutting and in other ways. The Taiwanese company said Gateway employees would be critical to its success in expanding the brand, but did not say whether it would cut staff. Â
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Shanghai  Shanghai opening  Best Buy Co, the biggest US electronics retailer, will open its first branded store in Shanghai at the end of this month, to increase its market share in the country's US$75 billion home- appliance market.
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Acer Inc. plans to acquire Gateway Inc. in a deal worth $710 million that Acer says will make it the world's third-largest PC vendor.
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Circuit City reports, and the company is finally worthy of being in Best Buy's company.
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(InfoWorld) - Underlining its expansion from online to retail sales, Dell launched desktop and notebook PCs Tuesday at Macy's department store in New York. The company announced nine new Inspiron desktops and notebooks and an XPS M1330 notebook, all available in a choice of eight shell colors. "The Dell of today is vastly different from the Dell of six months ago or even last week," said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president of Dellâs consumer product group. "We're here at Macy's in New York City. That alone is different for Dell, being in a department store or any kind of retail setting at all." Dell even set up a portable kiosk to take orders for the new PCs in a temporary space it will occupy at Macy's for the next two weeks, he said. The new Inspiron notebooks cost $749 for the model 1521 to $999 for the model 1720, with a choice of processors from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices. The Inspiron 1420 comes with an additional choice of Microsoft's Windows Vista or the Ubuntu Linux operating system, for $799. The Inspiron desktops start at $349 for models 530, 530s, 531, and 531s, all supporting up to 500GB of disk space to store digital media files, with the model 530 offering a choice between Windows and Linux. The XPS M1330 notebook costs $1,299 with a 13.3-inch widescreen display, weighs under 4 pounds, and comes with a one-year subscription to Dell's Online Backup service, where users can store 10GB of files on Dell servers for remote data access. In an effort to bolster its sliding market share and quarterly profits,Â Dell began selling certain PC models at Wal-MartÂ retail stores on June 10, marking the first time it had strayed from the direct sales model. Dell rose to prominence by cutting its costs through eliminating retail middlemen and selling its PCs through only its Web site, phone lines, and catalogs. That system began to fail in 2006, as competitors cut costs and Hewlett-Packard passed Dell to become the world's largest PC vendor. Now Dell is in the midst of a corporate reorganization announced May 31 that includesÂ laying off 10 percent of its 88,100 workers. Dell hopes its new retail presence will allow it to fix a strategic mistake. By trying to beat its competitors through low prices in recent years, Dell found itself spending all its publicity efforts promoting its least exciting products, Gruzen said. Selling PCs in retail stores gives Dell an opportunity to showcase its premium PC models and bring new luster to its corporate image at the same time. "This is really just a hint of what we're doing to get these exciting new products into customers' hands," Gruzen said. "We have a broader retail strategy, and over the coming months, we will announce more partnerships, both with Wal-Mart and with other retailers." Also on Tuesday, Dell unveiled a new marketing tagline -- "yours is here" -- that shares many values with HP's "the computer is personal again" campaign. Both companies are increasing the number of options they give customers to personalize PCs and bundling tools that make it easier to handle personal tasksÂ such asÂ digital photos and music as well as business jobs. Dell emphasized those increased choices with its color options for each PC, including pink, yellow, green, red, and blue, as well as standard white and black. An increasing number of PC vendors will soon begin to follow that pattern, trying to differentiate themselves with flashy style and design instead of solely through technical detailsÂ such asÂ processing power, according to a report released this week by Forrester Research. "The consumer PC industry is entering the Age of Style, a time in which radical form factor innovations, increased aesthetic diversity, and consumer choice and personalization will determine which models, and which PC vendors, win or lose," Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder said in the report.
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Acer's planned $710 million acquisitionÂ of U.S. PC vendor GatewayÂ won antitrust approval in the U.S. as the clock struck midnight Monday, Gateway said.
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The PC maker expands its retail presence by offering a range of products at the office superstore.
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Retail consumers in the U.S. could begin to see great deals on computer purchases as PC vendors get more competitive in the wake ofÂ Acer's announcement on Monday that it plans to buy Gateway.
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Acer's planned purchase of Gateway Inc. for $710 million, announced on Monday, means another reordering of the PC marketplace, analysts said.
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A fast growth rate and recent acquisitions in the U.S. and Europe will extend Acer&#39;s lead over Lenovo Group as the world&#39;s third-largest PC vendor behind Hewlett-Packard&#160;and Dell, according to a study released by Gartner on Wednesday.Acer and Lenovo stood neck-and-neck in global PC shipments with 8.1 percent and 8 percent market shares, respectively, in the third quarter of 2007. Before acquisitions, Acer shipped 5.54 million PC units worldwide, a healthy 58 percent year-over-year increase. The growth rate overshadowed Lenovo, which shipped 5.48 million PCs, a 22.8 percent increase.Gartner&#39;s quarterly figures were compiled before&#160;Acer finished its acquisition of Gateway&#160;on Wednesday for $710 million. Acer also funded Gateway&#39;s proposed acquisition of European PC vendor Packard Bell&#160;for an undisclosed sum. That was&#160;a blow to Lenovo Group, which in early August revealed it was in discussions with Packard Bell over a possible acquisition.Packard Bell is largely a European vendor and has a small market share, similar to eMachines in the U.S before it was acquired by Gateway, said Diana Maranon, managing partner at Averil Capital Markets Groups. Maranon&#39;s company brokered Gateway&#39;s Packard Bell acquisition.An IDC report, also released Wednesday, listed Lenovo as the world&#39;s third-largest PC vendor but indicated&#160;Acer could overtake Lenovo&#160;with its growth rates in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa and Asia-Pacific markets, excluding Japan. Acer&#39;s U.S. PC shipments grew more than 100 percent during the third quarter, though it could face more pressure from competitors as it continues to expand, IDC said.In the U.S., Acer replicated the business strategy that made it highly successful in Europe: de-emphasize retail, sell through indirect channels, and offer low, competitive prices, said Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. Acer stands at the low end in the U.S. market, and the Gateway acquisition gives it a good position in the middle and high-end markets, Kay said.Gateway&#39;s worldwide shipments increased 8 percent in the third quarter, though U.S. shipments fell 14.4 year over year, Gartner said.Acer&#39;s global growth strategy is paying dividends and could affect Lenovo in the U.S. and Europe, Kay said.The Packard Bell acquisition was a defensive move for Acer to ensure Lenovo doesn&#39;t get a toehold in the European market, Kay said. Acer is already one of the top notebook sellers in Europe.Lenovo showed positive growth in global markets, but Acer&#39;s acquisitions block Lenovo from acquiring some valuable shelf space for product distribution, said Charles Smulders, managing vice president at Gartner, in an e-mail interview.Lenovo could not be reached for comment.Global PC shipments&#160;during the third quarter were 68.4 million, driven by high demand for laptops in the home market, Gartner said. HP was the world&#39;s top PC vendor, with 12.8 million units shipped, a 18.8 percent market share, and 33.1 percent year-over-year volume growth. Dell followed with a 14.4 percent market share, shipping 9.86 million units, a 3.5 percent increase.The survey includes desktop PCs, laptops, and x86 servers.