Originaly Published in Computer Jagat Magazine in September 1994

Mr. Arun Krishnaswamy, Country Sales Manager of Acer Computer, South Asia said in an exclusive interview with Computer Jagat that Acer is aggressively seeking partnership with its local distributors in the areas of warranty, price, service, logistics and advertisement. The prime objective of this is to give Acer’s global brand local touch taking into consideration the local needs.

He said that this new approach is based on mutual trust and local distributors shall add value to Acer’s open machines having cutting edge features. In Mexico Acer has localized its products and instantly grabbed 32% market shares. This spirit helped Acer increase its revenue by an amazing 205% in June ’94 over 1993, informed Singapore based Arun.

Arun said that Acer do not like to duplicate the functions that can be better looked after by our local partners and Acer want them to concentrate seriously on certain areas. This synergy shall hone both the parties skill and ensure better global leverage. “It is no threat for any of us and it won’t weaken the synergy” said Arun.

“To face the challenge of new IT age Acer, a growing conglomerate of individual technology providing companies shall aggressively keep this relationship closer and closer”, said an equally aggressive and personable marketing executive Arun.

Replying on potentiality of Bangladesh market, Arun expressed his firm optimism as to future growth, of market and informed that with satisfactory performance of Acer’s high-profile local dealers— Dolphin computers and UnidevComputers, Acer shall continue to focus on solution based. Corporate and Garments Industry niches. “Development of advanced product that benefit consumers has always been Acer’s goal”, said Arun.

Since its founding in 1976 with only 11 employees, the Acer group has grown into a major computer, peripheral    and    component

supplier in the world. Arun said that with Acer’s own technology of bridging the chipset, the only Server based on Intel’s advanced Pentium that is working now in Singapore is Acer Pentium 90 Servers.

At present in Asia-Ocenia, Acer has its own subsidiaries in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Australia. Acer is also a major global competitor in Mother Board, BIOS, Cache controller cards, I.O. controller, ASIC, DRAM chip, Facsimile Machine market. These in-house access to a full range of technologies established Acer in a leading position, said Arun. He asserted, “For these unique advantage Acer brand products fetch money’s best value for the buyers and that put Acer brand among top 10 brands of PCs in the USA.”

Arun said, “The much acclaimed Acer state-of-the-art hardware fetching orders from Japanese companies to make hardwares for their machines lately and more than half of the PCs of the world have some of the Acer brand components in them.” Arun continued, “Our USA subsidiary is doing fairly good business because cost leveraging is better there.”

Arun also informed that Acer is the leading brand in Third World countries and positioned itself as No.l company in Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines and Thailand in PC, Server and Notebook sales.

Replying on response as to Acer’s praise-worthy introduction of International Travellers Warranty (ITW) program for its Notebook PCs. Arun said, “The portable nature of notebook PCs, results in a large number of these PCs being taken to areas where the product is not covered by a warranty. As part of our policy to provide the best possible service we introduced this program in January 1993 and almost 5,000 Acer Notebook owners from around the world have applied for an ITW warranty card so far.”

Informing about Acer’s global expansion Arun said that a joint venture semiconductor plant with Texas Instruments which is one of the world’s ten largest wafer fabs that currently produces 4MB DRAM chips in Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science based Industrial Park, and is expanding into production of 16MB DRAM chips in 1995.

In recognition of the great contributions of Acer Peripherals Inc. to Malaysian economy, Datoship honours has recently been awarded to Acer’s founder and chairman Stan Shih by Penang Governor Seri (Dr.) Hajyi Hamdan Bin SeikhTahir, informed Arun.

Detailing the Acer’s much publicized Vision of 21 in the 21 st, Arun said, “By working with local partners to run the business, implementing local management and encouraging local shareholder majorities, Acer is gradually achieving its goals of becoming a “Local Touch” global brand name with over US$ 8 billion in annual revenue by the year 2000 and this continued strengthening will pave the way for a world-wide alliance of borderless global companies within the Acer Group by the 21st century. Acer will include in its ranks 21 publicly won companies, a target known in corporate and computer world as “21 in 21″.

Young and avid Acer loyalist Arun concluded,-”These Acer Group companies will continue finding effective ways to meet the challenges of the new IT age, bringing benefits to Acer’s stock holders, employees, partners and the much revered first party— Customers.”

Azam Mahmood

Acer is fully aware of the potential impact its products may have on the environment and focuses on designing products that during their lifecycle have minimal effects on climate and environment and are made of the safest materials available.

For this reason Acer takes every effort to create products compliant with international and domestic regulations. Acer product design takes into consideration the ways to reduce environmental loading from the outset of production, in addition to user needs, functionality and added value.

Acer LCD monitors that are EcoDisplay-Ready achieve an environmentally friendly design in the following ways:

• • Capacity for product recycling

  • Proper management of restricted substances

  • Power-saving designs

  • Product thinness and minimalist packaging design

Acer LCD monitors also meet the standards of most known programs devoted to promote the production of energy efficient and eco-compatible devices, such as Energy Star, EPEAT, TCO, etc.

Energy Star® 5.0
Energy Star program is a combined effort of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy created in 1992 to coordinate energy labeling of office equipment. An Energy Star label ensures that the equipments have a special energy-efficient design, which allows them to use less energy for their normal tasks and automatically enter a low power mode when not in use without compromising performance.

All Acer LED displays are Energy Star® 5.0 compliant while the others will meet the Energy Star® 5.0 requirements starting from January 2010.
According to the Energy Star 5.0, displays must meet stringent requirements in On, Sleep, and Off modes. Furthermore, the Energy Star 5.0 certified monitors are 20% more energy efficient than comparable non-certified products.

Power saving technologies
Acer has always been dedicated to designing products with energy saving features.
Acer’s LCD displays with two lamps design can reduce power consumption up to 58% compared to traditional four lamps design, whereas monitors using LED backlight technology deliver outstanding power saving of up to 63% compared to traditional monitors.

Using LED-lighting instead of conventional fluorescent lamps, all WLEDs displays are mercury free and safer for the environment. LED lamp design offers several benefits, including lower energy consumption, greater efficiency, longer lifetime, smaller size (therefore allowing thinner designs) and increased robustness making it difficult to damage with external shock.

Furthermore, thanks to the Ultra Low Power Consumption Technology, Acer monitors use less than 0.1W power consumption in standby mode.

In response to international trends and requirements, most of plastic housing and mechanical parts used for Acer’s monitors do not contain hazardous substances such as PVC and BFR. Specifically, monitors’ casing, printed circuit board laminates, connectors and internal cables, for both system and panel, are free of PVC and BFR.

All Acer LCD Displays use recyclable and reusable packaging materials, included paper, PE bags and EPS cushion.

Acer represent in Bangladesh by executive technologies Ltd. House. 183, Road. 69, Gulshan-2, Dhaka-1212. Hotline: 01919 222 222.

The 19-inch color monitor springs to life. An icon of a tape recorder begins rewinding as the PC automatically backs up critical data on the 378M-by te hard drive to a rewritable optical drive.

Before the user takes off his coat, a video image of his boss’ head pops up onscreen and his voice comes out of the PC’s built-in speaker: “Planning meeting at 8:45 — try to make it this time, OK?” The image is replaced by a map of the office with a flashing red line leading from the user’s cube to the appropriate conference room.

Welcome to desktop computing in 1994.

This PC — with its built-in multimedia capabilities, faster processor, high RAM capacity, industrial-strength storage and workstation-like graphics — is the PC that vendors, analysts and users predict will appear on desktops within three years.

The big difference between 1994 and now they say, is that multimedia capabilities will be built in.

“By 1994, trying to buy a computer without basic multimedia capabilities will be like trying to buy a car in Texas with no air conditioning,” predicted Ed Judge, director of market planning for PC maker Tandy Corp.

“Full-motion video will be standardized”, said Michael Krieger, senior manager of advanced product marketing at PC maker AST Research Inc. “Multimedia will be widespread. Secretaries will be watching ‘Days of Our Lives’ in a little window in the corner of their screen while writing a letter on the rest of it.”

The desktop standard for CPUs will be Intel Corp’s 486 or even its forthcoming 586, observers said, rather than RISC processors from such vendors as Sun Microsystems Inc or MIPS Computer Systems Inc, or the alliance of Apple Computer Inc, IBM and Motorola Inc.

“In 1995, the majority [of PCs] are still probably going to be CISC-based 486,” said Gary Stimac, senior vice-president of system engineering for Compaq Computer Corp.

David Evancha, director of research for market researcher, Workgroup Technologies Inc concurs. “Until there’s a dominant standard, the movement to RISC will be inhibited,” he said.

By 1994, RAM and disk-storage prices will fall low enough that deciding how much memory to add to a system will become “almost a non-issue,” said JackCoopcr, vice-president and chief information officer for Joseph E Seagram Inc, a New York-based distiller.

With all this storage available, vendors will bundle automatic data backup into operating systems, said observers.

And as storage capacities rise, the typical form factor for storage devices will shrink. Market researcher Dataquest Inc predicts that 2.5-inch hard drives will dominate the market by 1994.

‘The advantage of 2.5-inch drives to systems markers is a lower power requirement,” said Jim porter, president of Disk/Trend Inc, a market-research firm. “Also, their heat [production] is less, so desktops can be designed without fans.”

The trend towards shrinking components will affect the size of 1994 PCs as well. As vendors turn to the smaller components found in today’s laptops and notebooks, the size of the chassis housing the PC’s CPU and disk drives will shrink to that of a three-ring binder, predicted Leonard Liu, chairman and CEO of Acer Corp.

Yet full-powered PCs will still be available in a continuum of sizes, observers predicted, ranging from palmtops such as Hewlett-Packard Co’s 95LX through notebooks and traditional desktop units.

The size and resolution of display, however, will grow instead of shrink. Most observers said 15-, 17- or even 19- inch monitors with workstation-like graphics will become a necessity for navigating around multi-windowed environments,

“Graphics are going to be l,024-by-768, maybe higher,” added Compaq’s Stimac.

One area that will be as important, but slower to improve in terms of hardware, is connectivity. Although many vendors and analysts predict that cellular telephone links will become a standard feature of notebook PCs and that built-in LAN adapters will become commonplace on desktops, the real gains in connectivity will have to wait for advances in software, observers said.

“Hardware will be the easiest” area in which to make networking advances, said Seagram’s Cooper. “Software will be the more taxing area.”

— Robert L Scheier