
Acer’s Everywhere. How Did That Happen? - nreece
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/technology/companies/28acer.html?_r=1&ref=technology
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jerryji
So _how_ exactly did it happen?

It's such a typical distracted and convoluted main stream news that after
reading the article my brain was like a messed up Rubik's Cube and I had to
twist much just to summarize only two points:

* Aggressive investment in Netbook, which is supposed to be disruptive innovation. This is fine.

* Acer is free to choose low cost parts for its laptop -- this is considerably fluffier as if its competitors are doing (trying to do) the same.

Anyone else has a better idea?

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old-gregg
Easy. It's not just Acer, it is Asus and MSI and possibly many more to come.
And its not because they're doing something exceptional. The business of PC
building has changed to their advantage because of two (harshly worded)
trends:

1\. Computers, even laptops, become commoditized and don't require much of R&D
to design and produce.

2\. The majority of PC sales are consumers' who, unlike business customers,
prefer _cheap_ disposable junk, hence there _isn't a single 24-bit true-color
laptop_ available to buy these days: they're all gone. (which makes me wonder:
what is the point of these high-tech digital SLRs?)

Don't bring the Apple argument: their success rests on value-add
services/software that just happen to run well on in-house hardware.

P.S. Suddenly, IBM's decision to sell off PC business several years ago looks
even more impressive.

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boundlessdreamz
IBM's decision to sell off the Thinkpad business was a good one. They must
have learned it from the commidification of their other businesses like the
Hard Disk business.

The margin of Acer is 2%. That is really really low. IBM margins in services
must be in 20s.

~~~
songism
Yup. IBM has an operating margin of 17% according to Yahoo.

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ieatpaste
Acer was already everywhere, just branded under another company's logo.

Acer, Asus, MSI, LG, Levono, HTC were OEMs for popular brands who decided to
strike off on their own.

~~~
just_the_tip
You sure about LG and Lenovo?

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ieatpaste
Lenovo were the OEMs for IBM's Thinkpads. LG still makes monitors for Dell,
hard drives that are rebadged and I'm not sure of what else (they are a huge
conglomerate)

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just_the_tip
LG was never an ODM (sic). And they don't manufacture hard drives. Sure, they
manufacture displays but so do Sharp and Philips. Also, I was under the
impression that Lenovo merely acquired IBM's PC business. All the other
companies are ODMs though.

~~~
kragen
Lenovo had been the manufacturer for the PC business for some years before
they bought it entirely.

I don't think the comment you're replying to claims that LG was the only
manufacturer of displays, just that it has manufactured displays badged with
other brands (and perhaps still does) and recently started selling them under
its own name (perhaps as well, rather than instead).

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Create
The heading/article should rather be:

Intel’s Everywhere. How Did That Happen? (nytimes.com)

And it suddenly becomes obvious: you need a case for the chips, preferably
with the least margin possible for .tw - Quoting Otellini is not an accident.
Those who had the doublethought of going ARM/MIPS are suffering hard.

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paulgb
Sorry to be off-topic, but can any language-nerd explain why the apostrophe is
appropriate here? Is it short for "Acer is everywhere"?

~~~
Elepsis
One can only assume so, because that's the only way it is correct. Not sure
why it isn't just written out to remove the awkwardness.

~~~
paulgb
I was so intrigued by this title that I went out to buy their style guide
(I've been wanting to read it for a while), but I couldn't find it in-store.
I'm really interested to see what they say about apostrophies, because they
seem to use them pretty liberally (eg. CEO's even when not plural).

