Acer seeks commercial growth with latest Chromebook launch
CEO revealed new products and what the vendor will be focusing on in the future at conference in New York
At the Acer conference in New York yesterday, CEO Jason Chen revealed what is next for Acer and outlined where he thinks the industry is heading.
Chen said that until three years ago, consumer sales accounted for 70 per cent of the company.
Now the commercial side accounts for 40 per cent of the business, which Acer hopes to keep increasing with the launch of their Chromebook 14 For Work. It claims that the Chromebook was designed to military-grade standards for durability.
During the conference Chen briefly touched on the difficult few years the company has had.
The Taiwanese vendor saw its revenue decrease 20 per cent year on year in 2015, and this year announced it will be splitting the company into two divisions.
The ‘core business group' will focus on laptops, desktop computers, tablets and research and development, while the ‘new business team' will focus on smartphones, wearables and its ‘bring your own cloud' service. The split is expected to happen in the second half of 2016.
He said: "Ever since the beginning we have had a vision to make sure we break down the barrier between technology and people. I joined Acer two-and-a-half years ago and I remember the first time we came to New York, the main topic we were talking about was turning around the company.
"Nowadays the discussion is about a post-smartphone era. The company we want to transform into will be in an area we call ‘bring your own cloud'. This is based on a vertical business model of intelligent, connected devices."
This ‘bring your own cloud' model includes Acer's new biking computer, which it claims is the first biking computer to include a camera.
Among the new products announced were: the Liquid Zest Plus smartphone; the Liquid Leap Fit smartwatch; and the Switch Alpha 12 2-in-1 device, which Acer claims is the "world's first 2-in-1 device with 6 Gen Core I with a fan-less design."