Acer to follow cloud trend

Acer is going to launch its cloud service shortly.
The world leading computer manufacturer will make its Acer Cloud Service available from next month in Western Europe and US first. And from September onwards the service will be launched in Asia Pacific.
S Rajendran, chief marketing officer, Acer India, told The Daily Star in an interview just after the launch of 15 new models of notebook and Ultrabook from Aspire family.
"See for the first time the IT landscape is changing where it is not about just pure hardware, you are also trying to give a solution to the customers," said Rajendran.
He said Acer has acquired a company, iGware, in US beginning of last year to give private cloud solution to its customers.
"If someone is user for one of Acer devices, he or she gets to be customer of Acer Cloud," he said.
Rajendran also said it doesn't matter if the user has only one Acer device. The user will be able to share data with other non-Acer devices.
On the just released notebooks he said for the first time Acer has come out with a range of products which includes lot of technology firsts.
"In my 28 years of experience, I am seeing this as one of the biggest refresh line-ups," said Rajendran.
S Rajendran's operation covers Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan along with India.
"We are happy with the Ultrabook acceptance in Bangladesh considering it is a high-end product," said Rajendran.
He said Acer is among the top three brands in Bangladesh, according to Gartner and IDC (two well reputed technology research companies).
"Acer has a very decent success rate in Bangladesh," said Rajendran.
In the first quarter Acer won one of the biggest government projects with 5,500 desktops in educational sectors.
"The authority is very happy with the delivery and installation of the products," said Rajendran.
On opening Acer factory in Bangladesh, Rajendran said as of now Acer has no plans to set up a factory here because of eco-system.
He said, "Opening or not opening is not important, the important thing is how fast we are able to meet the market requirement."
"Acer has a big facility in Pondicherry, India and this facility can scale up to 50,000-80,000 desktops a month," he said, adding, "given the connectivity we have, sometimes we take the goods by train from Chennai to Kolkata and then cross the border, so if we are able to take a fast-track like that I think within a maximum of 10 days we can deliver the products."
"Second, economies of scale need to justify opening a facility here. Supporting eco-system has to be in place in order to open a factory anywhere," he said.
Rajendran said Acer has quite a few Acer shops here in Bangladesh.
Acer desktops and servers come in Bangladesh from India. Notebooks, tablets projectors and monitors come from China.
Desktops and servers are reconfigured in India.
Acer has enabled shipment of units directly from factories for Bangladesh in last two years.
"Acer is looking for how to take its service-level higher, though Acer's partners are doing a very good job," he said.
In Bangladesh Acer has a client-base that includes corporate houses, government organisations, educational institutions and of course
personal users.
When asked why Bangladesh is not in the country list of Acer website, he said unless there is an Acer appointed company in a country, Acer does not host the name on its website.
Acer is also aligned with the sports world. Acer is providing all the IT support to the Olympic 2012 beginning in London next month.
"The entire infrastructure of the Olympic games will run on Acer computing technology," he said adding, "we installed over 950 servers, 2,900 notebooks, 13,500 desktops, and 13,000 monitors."
The infrastructure includes games management, competition scores, reception, information queries and broadcast support and the itinerary for each athlete as well.
Acer also provides entire IT infrastructure to Ferrari team for F1 race worldwide.