Margin hunting
We were a bit surprised when we heard Lenovo was going to be the first company to launch an ARM-based PC, assuming that the netbook pioneer ASUS, or Acer, which has embraced telco convergence more wholeheartedly than any other PC marker, would be first out of the block.
Just as with netbooks, however, while Acer may not be the first, it's positioning itself for a strong push after the pioneers have seeded the market. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Acer's president of IT products - Jim Wong - confirmed not only that Acer will be producing an e-reader this year, but will also launch an app store to go with it.
Another app store, just what we needed, but the move makes sense from Acer's perspective. It has become the world's number two PC maker by beating Dell at its own game - efficiency. Its manufacturing and supply chain are incredibly streamlined, while its channel-only sales model ensures a minimal workforce.
However, there's only so far you can take the streamlined manufacturing model before you start to run out of margin, so the obvious move it to try to cash-in further on a large hardware install-base by offering services, which generally provide much higher margins.
With the US market already approaching saturation point for e-readers, it looks like Acer's one will launch initially in Europe. "Amazon, Barnes & Noble; they are U.S.-centric. In Western Europe and Asia-Pacific we have publishers to work with, and most of them are content owners," said Wong in the interview.
Wong also confirmed Acer is working on a netbook that will run on Google's Chrome operating system. "For Chrome, we're aggressively pursuing to become one of the first, so there's a change to the Microsoft-Intel environment," he said.
