Exaggerated reports?
Taiwanese PC maker Acer has stolen a nice lot of market share over the past few years and it looks like its founder is starting to get a bit cocky about it.
Speaking to the Chinese language Commercial Times, and reported by press agency AFP, Acer founder Stan Shih - who retired as Acer chairman in 2004 and founded management company iD SoftCapital - said: "The trend for low-priced computers will last for the coming years."
"But US computer makers just don't know how to put such products on the market... US computer brands may disappear over the next 20 years, just like what happened to US television brands."
While it's true that the majority of living room consumer electronics brands these days come from the Far East, and that Acer does seem to run a more efficient, streamlined operation than even Dell, PCs are still a very different proposition to TVs.
Shih may well be right in the context of consumer PCs, but businesses and the public sector are not quite as price obsessed as consumers. Also, there's always the server market.
There's no doubting the ascendancy of far eastern PC makers, especially Acer and Lenovo. But let's not forget one company remains far bigger than any of them and still manages to get consumers to pay top dollar for its PCs. It's called Apple and, last time we looked, is a US company.
