Acer to use Olympics as B2B lighthouse

Consumer-focused vendor gears up for assault on SMB and corporate market

Acer believes its involvement with the Olympic Games can act as the perfect reference as it launches an assault on the B2B space through the channel.

The consumer-focused player is close to unveiling a new partner programme, along with its first special bid pricing tool, to help its 2,000 partners take on the likes of HP and Dell in the SMB and corporate market.

Acer has supplied more than 10,000 desktops, 900 servers and 2,000 notebooks to the organisers of the London 2012 Olympic Games and is banking on the project to act as the perfect lighthouse account for the strategy.

Nathan Knight, business unit manager commercial at Acer, said: "One of the largest greenfield corporate sites in the UK is sitting on Acer technology and this is a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our capabilities."

Acer is "90 per cent" of the way through developing a new partner programme designed to give resellers faster access to its internal resources and product information. A tool enabling partners to request pricing through a bid management process will also be launched.

UK managing director Neil Marshall admitted corporate success would not come quickly for a vendor that has traditionally focused on volume retail.

"We recognise it is a slow process and have a three-year plan to establish ourselves in that space," he said.

"But the message we are hearing from the channel is they want Acer to step up. The channel is competing directly with Dell and HP and there are not too many channel-friendly players out there they can partner with."