India’s IT market is projected to grow annually at a rate of 4.95 percent between 2015 and 2019—the fastest globally—to touch $85.3 billion by the end of 2019. As the IT Hardware market is expected to touch $12.43 billion, an approximate double digit growth of tablet PCs and Notebook market can be safely predicted in India. Chances are-there will be a remarkable growth of smartphone during this time period with 4G networks getting rolled out and increased uptake of 3G data services. Further, the desktop market in India is expected to grow exponentially at the same time. Major challenges facing the Indian electronic manufacturing market is the infrastructure that needs to be improved at the earliest possibility. Taxation related issues being the other half of the core problem facing the manufacturing sector, to some extent, constrains innovation. There have been recent concerns on the unpredictability of taxation, due to issues like retro-active taxation in few cases. An innovation driven Electronics Company’s passion for technology is rooted in what it enables people to explore and reach the height of their potential. Enabling people to go beyond their limits, to spark curiosity and ignite discovery with an assortment of products is the Taiwan headquartered Acer.

Acer, established in 1976, is hardware + software + services company dedicated to research, design, marketing, sale and support of innovative products that impact the immediate routine lives of people. Acer's green supply chain delivers environment friendly PCs, displays, projectors, servers, tablets & smartphones and associated tools that customers need to keep in pace with the technology-enabled lifestyle. Acer believes that innovation and enthusiasm with new usage models is the key to stimulate market demand; therefore, innovation remains Acer’s prime focus. This focus and pursuit for design excellence spans across hardware, software and the overall user experience that Acer journeys. “We are collaborating with leading partners of this industry to spearhead industry developments and trends”, exclaims Jason Chen, the President & CEO of Acer, when asked about innovation within the company.

“Fresh technology enjoyed by everyone, everywhere”- Predator 17 and 15 gaming notebooks
In the era of smartphone and mobile gaming, the growth of PC Gaming industry is not only keeping its grounds safe, but also growing at a faster pace than other gaming consoles and phone/tablets. According to a latest gaming report, the PC Gaming industry is estimated to be worth $35 billion by 2018, and a staggering growth of 33 percent in the next four years. The report also highlights the fact that electronic sports and large multiplayer games are emerging as the main drivers for the growth of PC gaming industry. Acer’s focus is to develop a new consumer segment and to create product differentiation. Soon enough, Acer revealed several new additions to its Predator range of gaming hardware which being a standout product was a fully-fledged Android gaming tablet and notebook series.

Acer offers a cross-category portfolio of Predator gaming devices, including desktops, notebooks, tablets, monitors, and even projectors. The newly launched Predator gaming notebook comes loaded with powerful 6th Generation Intel Core i7 processors with high-performance NVIDIA GeForce graphics, Ultra-fast DDR4 memory, PCIe solid state drives, Advanced Cooling and Stellar Audio Capabilities to deliver an exceptional gaming experience. The sporty red accents compliment the black chassis with symmetric lines and soft texture coating for extra grip and gaming ergonomics. With the fast rendering graphic components bundled within the notebook, a user can explore seamless Hi-Def content without experiencing any lag issue. The notebook also features ‘Killer DoubleShot Pro’, a new technology that enables Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections to work together for the ultimate high-speed attack. The ‘Killer Network Manager’ determines the attributes of each link and dedicates connections to each and every app. The Predator 15 notebook line includes models with 15.6-inch Full HD or 4K (3840x2160) Ultra HD panels. The Predator 17 notebooks feature 17.3-inch Full HD displays. Both lines support up to three displays including one NVIDIA G-SYNC monitor for the off the edge in-gaming visuals and realism.

With the launch of Predator, Acer aims to position as the new age media and entertainment brand, with a thrust on high-end gaming thereby going beyond Acer's current perception of a computing-only brand. “We are facilitating gamers with bleeding edge technology that is proven and reliable, considerably improving their gaming experience”, says Harish Kohli, MD, Acer India. Gamers like to gather and compete at LAN parties with their gaming machines. Acer produces gaming devices that are also portable, such as, the Predator G1 which is compact yet powerful desktop. Also the Predator Z850 laser projector projects a 120-inch screen at a remarkably short distance of just 47 cm, with a top-mounted lens and adjustable feet for effortless deployment without any drilling or mounting required, this projector is ideal for quick setup at LAN parties.

Personal Computing, Smartphones and Beyond
Acer traditionally has a very prominent presence in the Government and BFSI sector pertaining to the rich product portfolio, global standards and competitive pricing strategies. It’s encouraging to see government bringing in a lot of initiatives to improve PC penetration at a macro level. Given that the penetration is extremely low, Acer sees a lot of scope here and has strongly engaged in the PC space. Acer machines have met tough global benchmarks and fairly won over the competition to gain market share in the PC & Desktop space. Acer is known for making Windows PCs, but the company has also launched various mobile products running the Android operating system. Acer prefers to go with consumer demand in offering solutions, and is typically agnostic to any specific platform. And within that larger framework the company partners with technology giants like Microsoft, Google, including some open-source platforms to render reliable solutions on Acer hardware. However, the entire PC industry is facing a challenging time, and Acer’s strategy has been to focus on the strengths, that is, technology innovation and market reach. Acer has an effective product-mix strategy to meet the needs of different regional markets. The PC industry is also shifting to include new form factors; IDC forecasted that 2-in-1s (with detachable tablets) shipments will rise in their proportion from 8 percent in 2015 to 30 percent in 2020. Acer has been doing remarkably well in this segment and if 2-in-1s too is considered into IDC’s total PC shipment data, Acer stood at the 4th position in 2015.

Other bright spots for Acer include Chromebooks in which the company has been at No. 1 position for the last two years and has grabbed 33 percent of worldwide market share in 2015. Similarly for LCD monitors Acer topped the list in EMEA retail in 2015, and bagged the 3rd position in the latest Q4 data for Asia Pacific.
Acer’s brand philosophy of ‘Breaking barriers between people and technology’ places Acer in a very unique position in the customers’ minds. Beyond that, the strategy of ‘progressive design’ basically means to constantly evolve design powered by R&D that resonates with the changing consumer behavior. Acer has always introduced innovative features in smartphones such as triple SIM, long lasting battery, zero-air gap technology focusing on providing truly reliable products which have a great value-for-money quotient. “Recently, we have launched 2 smartphone devices- Acer Liquid Z530 and the Acer Liquid Z630S.Both the phones are armed with a powerful processor, adequate RAM and long battery life”, adds Harish Kohli.

A Vision for Connected Devices
As Acer’s new business expansion progresses, the company unveiled the BeingWare vision which encompasses vertical business models with intelligent connected devices. As the “Internet of Things” evolves into the “Internet of Beings,” a human-centric network based on a collective of intelligence is necessary to make the swarms of smart devices more meaningful. The “Things” or devices not only require a reliable communication link to the cloud, which Acer’s BYOC platform provides, but also integration with services, empowering BeingWare applications to provide user-centric services and solutions that know, serve, and grow with the user.

Examples of BeingWare include the industry’s first cycling computer with intelligent video recording applications built-in and designed by Acer via its subsidiary, Xplova. Similarly, the grandPad solution in the US market to help digitally disconnected senior citizens aged 75+, to get connected to their family and loved ones, is another perfect example for BeingWare initiative.

Acer Starbreeze partnership
Acer signed a letter of intent with Starbreeze to form a joint venture for the StarVR Virtual Reality (VR) Head-Mounted Display (HMD).While Acer announced powerful desktops and notebooks fully-ready for StarVR, it is also devoting R&D resources across multiple aspects of the VR ecosystem for a coherent and high-quality experience. The partnership will see the collaboration on design, manufacturing, promotion, marketing and sales of the StarVR head-mounted display to the professional- and location-based entertainment market. After having flourished for 40 years in the innovation market, the recent launch of the VR-ready Predator line-up of performance driven devices, Acer has once again become the front runner in new trends for computing and entertainment. Acer’s high-octane Predator line provides a no-compromise experience in performance for serious gamers that demand the best gear. Not failing to mention, in April, 2016 at New York, Acer announced a powerful gaming desktop and notebook ready for VR devices from four major vendors: StarVR, Oculus, HTC Vive, and OSVR.

Acer Design Studio for Innovation
The initiative of Acer Design Studio was inspired by IDEO, a very famous global design agency who had a long term culture change program with Acer in the past few years. This studio, built in 2013, is a true working space which celebrates the spirit of prototyping; it enables Acer’s internal designers and engineers to experiment with new ideas quickly using the prototyping facilities. In this studio, innovation is no longer a slogan, but a down to earth practice which the team is eager to achieve in every project. Through the interactive diverge and converge process, Acer starts from understanding user’s needs and then transform the raw data into meaningful insights. With the insights learned, the team brainstorms tons of ideas to solve the needs for different users; and through a repeated validating process for the new concepts and ideas the Acer team brings to realization a truly appealing yet feasible product.“With the Acer Design Studio, we can keep exploring and creating better experiences and designs for our customers”, asserts Jason Chen.

Acer embarked on its latest corporate re-engineering at the end of 2013, to transform the company in the post PC/smartphone era. Acer announced a Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC) vision, and sought to create a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use cloud ecosystem to simplify and improve life & business. As Acer made structural improvements to enhance operational efficiency and find new opportunities, today, Acer is pursuing multiple growth engines of the core business, while exploring new market domains to broaden the business boundaries while continuing to transform to become a hardware + software + services company.

AOP- 'BlueSky Alliance'
Through talking to real businesses and real people, Acer has concluded that entry into the cloud is definitely not an easy thing. It requires lots of knowledge and large amounts of capital. The AOP is Acer’s answer for businesses in need of those private cloud solutions. Secure and reliable, a partner only has to connect the solution to Acer’s cloud to start receiving benefits of AOP service.
To help these businesses get into the cloud and start utilizing the AOP, Acer has started the ‘BlueSky Alliance,’ a group of Acer’s business partners with whom Acer works very closely to assist them in all stages of development. The main objective of the BlueSky Alliance is to lower the entry barriers for those who intending to get into the cloud.

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