Acer's been on a quest to reinvent itself pretty much since the sunset of the netbook era — which both fuelled the Taiwanese company's rapid growth and left it floundering when consumers moved on to other devices. Most recently, CEO and chairman J.T. Wang announced his resignation, expressing regret at having failed to turn the company's fortunes around. Only a couple of weeks after that news comes word of even more momentous change for Acer: founder Stan Shih is taking over the chairman and president roles with immediate effect.
Jim Wong, who had been occupying the president's seat up to this point, was slated to take over from Wang as CEO from the start of next year — but now Acer is completely scrapping the CEO position and concentrating decision making power in Shih's hands. Acer's press release states that Wang and Wong will be retained as "advisors to ensure a smooth transition." The former CEO duties will be handed off to either the chairman or president, which Acer expects will "boost the company's decision making efficiency." That will undeniably be true in the initial stages when Shih will fill both roles, though he's only going to be interim president — the role will be filled permanently as soon as a suitable candidate is identified. Fellow Acer co-founder George Huang is also joining the management team.
REARRANGING THE BOARDROOM CHAIRS
In the wake of the November 5th restructuring, Huang and Shih had been charged with heading up a committee to recommend a future direction for Acer, proposing changes in its "vision, strategy, and execution plans." Evidently, their conclusion has been that the only way to steady the ship is to take a more hands-on approach to managing the company. Stan Shih, who'll be working without recourse to a salary, describes today's changes as essential: "due to the situation that now faces Acer and my personal social responsibilities, I must stand up and take the reign."
Via: The Verge
The Acer C720-2848 Chromebook is priced at $199.99. This one sports and 11.6-inch ComfyView HD display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 and similar to the earlier model, it is powered by an Intel Celeron processor based on the Haswell architecture. In other words, this one should still hold the same mix of performance and battery life. Acer suggests the C720-2848 will be able to provide up to 8.5 hours of run time.
Other specs for the C720-2848 include 16GB of SSD storage, 2GB of RAM, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, HDMI and a dual speaker setup. There will also be one each of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The model will weigh in at 2.76 pounds and measure in at 0.75-inches thick. Similar to other Chromebook models, both from Acer and other manufacturers, the C720-2848 will come with some extra perks.
These extras include 100GB of Google Drive storage (free for two-years), Google Play Music All Access and 12 free Gogo Inflight passes. That all having been said, the Acer C720-2848 Chromebook is available beginning today and can be found with retailers to include Best Buy and Amazon.
Looking forward, this model will also be available direct with Acer, however the notebook is not expected to arrive in the Acer Store until December. There wasn’t specific mention of Play Store availability, but based on previous Acer Chromebooks, we expect this one will be sold direct with Google.
Source : Android Community
Acer is trying to push down the prices of Chromebooks, announcing a new laptop with Chrome OS priced at $200.
The Acer Chromebook C720-2848 has an 11.6-inch screen, and is targeted at those who do most of their computing on the Web. The lightweight laptop offers 8.5 hours of battery life and runs on an Intel Celeron processor based on the Haswell microarchitecture.
A new wave of Chromebooks, running the latest version of Chrome OS, have hit the market starting in October. The latest Chromebooks are priced above $200, and the new Acer laptop and could spark a price war.
The low price will hopefully make Chromebooks attractive to more buyers, an Acer spokeswoman said in an email. Most laptops today have Windows.
The Chromebook C720-2848 weighs only 1.25 kilograms, is extremely thin, and boots up in a matter of seconds, Acer said. It has 16GB of solid-state drive storage and 2GB of DRAM, with 100GB of free Google Drive online storage for the first two years.
The screen can display images at a resolution of 1366 x 768-pixel resolution.
Other features include a webcam, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. An HDMI port allows the laptop to be connected to high-definition TVs.
The laptop is available immediately in the U.S. Information on worldwide availability was not immediately available.
Source : PCWorld
The troubled company announced on Tuesday that President Jim Wong will succeed Wang as CEO, and that it will cut its global staff by 7 percent, a move aimed at saving operating expenses of $100 million annually from 2014.
"Q3's operating loss was mainly due to the gross margin impact of gearing up for the Windows 8.1 sell-in and the related management of inventory," the company said in a statement.
Acer said there was also an intangible asset impairment loss, which includes trademarks and goodwill, of T$$9.94 billion during the reporting period.
Source : Reuters
Source : Engadget
A smart watch from Samsung Electronics, an Acer smartphone that can shoot 4K video, and a Sony smartphone with a 20-megapixel sensor, plus a plethora of tablets and TVs, are all expected at this year's IFA consumer electronics show.
Consumer electronics manufacturers from all over the world are once again heading to Berlin for the show, which won't open its doors to the public until Friday. By then, though, most of the new products will have already been announced at news conferences on Wednesday and Thursday.
Samsung readies watch, Galaxy Note
Samsung is expected to launch a smart watch, the voice-controlled Galaxy Gear, rumoredto allow users to keep track of calls, messages and social networks. The device will also have calorie and pulse monitors, and apps that take advantage of those features, according to media reports. The smart watch segment is being increasingly hyped, but expectations should in this case be tempered by the fact that the Galaxy Gear is a first generation device, and few vendors get everything right the first time.
The Korean company is expected to launch a new Galaxy Note too. When it launched the first phone-and-stylus combination back at IFA in 2011, the form factor had its detractors. But Samsung has managed to create a new product category, in which it now faces stiff competition from the likes of Sony and LG Electronics.
The Note's screen size has increased from 5.3 inches to 5.5 inches and is expected to be 5.7 inches on the Galaxy Note 3, with a 1920 by a 1080 pixel resolution. The Note 3 will have a 13-megapixel camera and Samsung is also expected to stick with a MicroSD card slot, in addition to the 32GB or 64GB of integrated storage.
The device will be powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 or Samsung's own Exynos 5 Octa processor. The company demonstrated a new model of the latter in July. The Exynos 5420 has four Cortex-A15 processors running at 1.8GHz and four additional Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3 GHz. It also has a six-core Mali-T628 GPU for improved graphics performance. Compared to its predecessor, the Exynos 5420 will also be more power efficient, according to Samsung. At the time, Samsung said the processor was scheduled for mass production in August.
Any large-screened new Samsung smartphone will probably have to duke it out with the Xperia Z1 Sony is expected to launch at IFA. In an effort to differentiate its new flagship from the competition it looks like Sony is taking a note from Nokia's play book by focusing on the camera, which will have a 20-megapixel sensor. The smartphone's specification is also rumored to include a 5-inch full HD screen and a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor.
Tablets from LG, Archos
Some smartphone and tablet vendors didn't want to get drowned out at IFA, so they have already announced products ahead of the show.
From LG Electronics comes the G Pad 8.3 tablet, which has an 8.3-inch screen with a 1920- by-1200-pixel resolution. It is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 600 Processor running at 1.7GHz and has inherited some features from LG's recently announced G2 smartphone, including the capability for users to knock on the screen to turn on the device. With a feature called QSlide, users will be able to control "up to three different apps in one window with no interruption."
The tablet will be rolled out in North America, Europe and Asia as well as other regions starting next quarter. Prices will be announced at launch time, according to LG.
Archos also wants a bigger piece of the tablet market and will show a number of new products in Berlin. Android-based tablets in its Platinum range will be made out of aluminium and have quad-core processors and screens with resolutions of up to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. The tablets in the new ChildPad range feature a user interface designed for children, parental controls as well as a filtered version of the Google Play app store.
PCs, TVs to make debut
The rapid growth of the tablet market has left the PC sector struggling. Vendors are looking for new ways to lure consumers into buying a PC as well as a tablet.
Acer has announced the DA241HL, an Android-based all-in-one PC that has a 24-inch Full HD touchscreen and is powered by a Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Via an HDMI connector it can also double as a display for a Windows 8-based laptop or desktop computer. The DA241HL will be available mid-October and cost from $570.
LG, on the other hand, is hoping a screen with a 21:9 aspect ratio will help. Consumer interest in the format has increased since LG launched its first monitors last year, it said. Last week the company unveiled the V960 all-in-one PC, which has a 29-inch, 21:9 screen with picture-in-picture functionality, allowing users to browse the Internet while watching TV, the company said. LG didn't announce any details on when it will ship or what it will cost.
The TV sector is another part of the consumer electronics industry that has been struggling in the last couple of years. The addition of 3D has largely been a failure, so TV manufacturers have instead set their sights on 4K resolution sets, which have a 3,840 x 2,160 pixel resolution.
They face two main challenges—lack of content and getting the price down to something a majority of consumers can afford. Recently, Samsung and Sony bothdropped the cost of their 4K products, in Sony's case to around $4,000 for a 55-inch model.
Just like last year, all the major vendors are expected to show new 4K TVs, although it remains to been seen whether they have cheaper models in store. Rumors ahead of the show are mostly about 4K products that are out of reach for most consumers, including a 98-inch TV from Samsung.
One way to get around the shortage of 4K video content is to allow users to create their own, which is what Acer's Liquid S2 does. The device will be unveiled at IFA, and is the first smartphone capable of recording 4K video. The device has a 6-inch full HD screen and is also powered by 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor. The Liquid S2 version will be available at the end of October. Pricing was not announced.
Sony's Xperia Z1 is also rumored to be capable of 4K video recording.
IFA opens in Berlin on Friday and will continue through September 11.
source : Tech Hive
Microsoft is keen for manufacturers to build smartphones for its Windows Phone 8 OS, but Acer isn't willing to bite this time.
Acer isn't alien to the Windows Phone game as it launched the Windows Phone 7.5-toting Allegro in 2011, but it's yet to venture into the latest version of platform.
Allen Burnes, Acer's VP of Smartphones for EMEA told TechRadar: "We are looking at Windows Phone 8, we think it's a great OS. The integration with Xbox is nice, the enterprise suite is nice, but I think no one knows about it."
Burnes continued: "You'll find everyone in our smartphone team would really like to deploy Windows OS, but in relation to where we are as a company we have to make our decisions in relation to what we think will sell out.
Waiting game
"We've made the decision not to launch a Windows Phone 8 device this year. Next year, depending on how we see the growth go this year, we may well do."Acer wants to hear more from Microsoft on the new platform. "What they [Microsoft] has to do is communicate. They can't rely on Nokia, which has its own challenges of rebuilding its brand, to do it for them," he said.
The Taiwanese firm is also looking at the bigger picture when it comes to Windows, with clear benefits across its PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone divisions.
"The way WP8 integrates in with the rest of the Windows ecosystem is phenomenal," Burnes says, "so yes we are looking at Windows Phone 8, yes we do believe in it, it just doesn't sell enough at this moment, otherwise we would deploy it this year."
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