First Asus WiMAX notebook ships, others from Lenovo, Acer to come

Now that the long promised faster speeds of WiMAX are starting to rev up into reality, PC makers are rolling out the first WiMAX-enabled networks. At least one model -- from Asus -- is already shipping, but it'll cost you a cool $1,399.
Sprint's launch in Baltimore of the first WiMAX network in the US drew support this week from a long list of PC vendors that are either planning or already selling WiMAX-enabled laptops, including Asus, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.
The new branding strategy for Acer, Packard Bell, and Gateway

In Budapest, Hungary on Friday, the Acer group unveiled its strategy for marketing and identity-branding for all of its consumer computer labels.
TBR analyst John Spooner remarked to us earlier this year that Acer looked to be arranging itself at the top of its brand pyramid, ahead of Gateway and Packard Bell, and eMachines. In the new conglomerate, it looked like all the brands would retain their identities. On Friday, Acer announced the relative markets where these products would be aimed, and there doesn't appear to be a change in course.
Netbook prices approach affordability after Acer cuts

Although netbooks really only hit the market less than a year ago, the pint-sized notebooks seem to be showing signs already of commoditization, though maybe with greater differentiation on the high end.
Acer has just announced price drops of on both the Windows and Linux editions of its Aspire One netbook line. An Aspire One netbook with Windows XP Home, a 120 GB hard disk drive, 1 GB of RAM, and a three-cell battery is now list priced at $349.99.
Apple computer sales seen surging in US, Acer also strong

While the company has yet to make a mark among worldwide computer shipments in either major survey of the PC industry, it continued to show impressive strength stateside. But Acer is #3 or #4, depending on whom you ask.
In the Gartner survey, the company gained two percentage points of market share year-over-year to end the second quarter of 2008 with 8.5 percent of the market and a little under 1.4 million units shipped, good enough for third.
Atom-based Acer Aspire One makes its American debut

Acer today officially launched US sales for the Aspire One, its stylish, ultra-lightweight notebook with Intel's newest Atom processor built-in, and whose hard drive...is optional.
The US market will see three Aspire One models available, with base prices ranging from $379 to $449. The ultraportables are available in white or blue, with brown and black expected to be available for the holidays.
HP and Acer end their patent litigation

Engaged in patent-infringement lawsuits in three federal courts, and under two US International Trade Commission investigations for well over a year, HP and Acer summarily ended their battle on Sunday.
HP threw the first punch in March 2007 in the US District court of the Eastern District of Texas, calling for monetary compensation for- and an injunction upon Acer's computers which supposedly infringed on five patents (referred to in the original suit as "the '721, '697, '211, '933, and '759 patents") held by HP, three of which it obtained when it acquired Compaq.
Acer launches new netbook, promises WiMAX

Call them sub-notebooks, netbooks, UMPCs, or what one clever Engadget poster deemed them: "Liliputers," the biggest hardware launches at Computex in Taipei this week fall into the umbrella category of "smallest."
The specifications for Acer's Aspire One are now official as of today: With a profile of 9.8" x 6.7" x 1.14", a weight of under 2 pounds, and an LED display with 1024 x 600 resolution, the Aspire One is about on par with its fellow netbooks in size.
Early pictures reveal Acer's next sub-notebook

If sub-notebooks weren't so small, it would be getting very crowded in here. The second addition to the ultra-portable PC category in as many days comes from Acer and its "Aspire One."
Acer's low-cost sub-notebook lacks firm specifications thus far, but the screen looks to be 8.9" with 1024 x 768 resolution. Further information is expected to be revealed at the Computex trade show in Taipei next week. UMPC Portal suspects it is an Atom/Diamondville device like the 1.6 Ghz MSI Wind, and Digitimes expects it to carry a price tag under €200.
Gateway's notebook lineup under Acer starts to gel

In the interest of keeping the individual identities of the whole family of Acer properties alive, Gateway has announced an expansion of its notebook lines.
During the launch of Acer's Gemstone, analyst John Spooner of TBR remarked to BetaNews that the company looked to be positioning itself at the high end of the market, above Gateway and Packard Bell. If that is the case, then today's announcement makes Gateway look appealing to the "top 2/3" gamer/enthusiast market. All models will include Windows Vista SP1, with some offering an upgrade to Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition SP1.
Acer eyes future desktop systems, including game machine

Over the next year, Taiwan-based notebook PC maker Acer will start to produce desktop units under the Acer brand...and a senior Acer official told BetaNews yesterday that a PC-based game machine is one of the ideas being bandied about.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Right now, the Acer brand name is still equated with PC notebooks only, despite Acer's acquisition of Gateway. But in an interview with BetaNews at its press event on Wednesday, Acer's senior vice president, James T. Wong, said that his company has a game machine in mind, and that it will be based on "open standards."
New Acer Gemstone notebooks feature NVidia 9-series, Blu-ray options

On the heels of its completed acquisition of the Gateway, eMachines, and Packard Bell brands, Acer celebrated its first US-based gala unveiling this afternoon with two new widescreen multimedia notebooks and a fresh marketing strategy.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Blue is the new color for Acer, both in terms of the new holographic logo imprinted on its new notebooks' covers, and their Blu-ray Disc options, as revealed in a gala press event here this afternoon.
"Blue is the color of the sky," said Acer's corporate VP of marketing and brand, Gianpiero Morbello. "Blue is a calm and cool color."
Are Lenovo's laptops beating Acer and Apple to the punch?

By unveiling a new line of stylish laptops ahead of both CES and Macworld, Lenovo stands alone in the limelight today. But is there still room for another large player in the laptop space?
In unveiling a trio of design-conscious "IdeaPad" laptops for the consumer market, Lenovo today beat newfound competitors such as Dell and Acer to the punch by at least three days, and Apple by a couple of weeks.
Gateway Acquisition Gives Acer More to Fight HP With

Setting up more guns on its side in its all out brawl against global #1 PC seller Hewlett-Packard, global #3 Acer - now with Gateway under its belt - filed amendments to its countersuit on Tuesday, alleging HP infringed on patents held by Acer. It's a serious battle, as Acer fights to prevent a federal judge from imposing an injunction against the importation of Acer PCs from Taiwan into the US.
Acer completed the transition of Gateway into its portfolio on October 17, so the timing of this countersuit is probably not coincidental. A check of the US Patent and Trademark Office database this morning revealed no fewer than 323 patents were assigned to Gateway, Inc. of Irvine, California. Though the amended lawsuit filing has not yet been made public, so the new patents in question have not been revealed outside of court, Gateway's patent portfolio included chip designs such as digital audio controllers, and practical designs such as a slot for holding a stylus on a portable PC.
Acer Seeks 12% Market Share in 2008

Acer's acquisition of Gateway has had a definite impact on its overall market share, its chairman said Friday, and forecasted the manufacturer would be able to ship 25 percent more computers in 2008. The boost should allow the company to claim an 11 to 12 percent share during the next year. Analysts have said that Acer likely took over the third spot behind HP and Dell from Lenovo following the deal.
Third quarter profits at the company surged 58 percent behind strong demand for its laptops and growth in emerging markets. Acer expects its fourth quarter numbers to be equally as good, as it hasn't seen any slowdown in demand for its products. Fourth quarter shipments of Acer products are expected to be 10 percent above third quarter numbers, the company said in a conference call.
Acer's Growth Hiccups as Lenovo Reclaims World #3 PC Maker Position

We've been using the term "resurgent" in conjunction with Acer so often that you'd begin to think it was a brand name for a new PC model. But in the quarter just ended the surge failed, so to speak, as hardware analysis firm iSuppli reports unit shipments for Acer fell by 10,000 for the first time in several quarters.
For the second quarter of 2007, the "resurgent" tag belongs elsewhere: first to Lenovo, which responded to Acer's first quarter challenge with flying colors. Shipping 22.9% more units in the second quarter than it did in the first, Lenovo pumped out about 4.87 million PCs. In so doing, it bumped Acer in iSuppli's global Top 5 OEM list back down to #4, and took back 1.5% of market share.
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