Acer plans for European float take back seat

Taiwanese PC vendor Acer has postponed plans for a European flotation and slimmed down its channel following the arrival of the recently appointed UK managing director and Continent-wide restructure.

In another development, the vendor has transferred more than half of its tier-one resellers to buy from distribution and 190 direct resellers have been narrowed down to 60. It has also decided not to sign up Future Distribution as an official partner, following differences over Acer's revised Ts&Cs.

Future Distribution is run by Darrell Bluck, former sales director of Acer UK. Bluck left the manufacturer to set up his own business last year (PC Dealer, 26 August 1998).

However, Acer will appoint a broadline distributor in addition to what it calls 'boutique' niche distributors, to meet its forecast of five per cent of the UK PC market share by the year-end.

Dion Weisler, who replaced Graham Jackson as managing director after he resigned last year, told PC Dealer last week that the Taiwanese manufacturer's priorities had changed. 'Flotation is not a key focus for the group at the moment. Internal organisation and priorities have changed so the flotation has been postponed with no renewal date in mind,' he said.

Originally, Acer intended to float its European subsidiary on the London Stock Exchange by 2000 (PC Dealer, 17 September 1997). But the vendor has recently been plagued by the Asian economic crisis, which forced it to rethink the strategy and seek funds closer to home.

Now, according to Weisler, Acer is focusing on redirecting emphasis on the Soho, government and education sectors. Notebooks and servers are the vendor's priority along with its XC thin-client machines, for users that do not require full PC capacity.