Acer’s Roll Hasn’t Stopped At Gaming Now They Go After ‘Micro Market’ Claims Global Boss
Tiffany Huang is the Co-COO of Acer, during a recent visit to Australia she exclusivelly spelt out for ChannelNews how the global PC brand which is #1 in the highly competitive world of PC gaming is now going after the creators of gaming software, video’s and online creative with a new range of PC’s known as Concept D it’s all part of a micro market initiative.
After conquering the users Acer, the fourth largest PC Company in the world is now going after creators a move that could just attract MAC fans who are seeing the cost of ownership go up while performances stagnate.
The notion behind the development of Concept D came when Acer management noticed that content creators were gravitating to the more powerful range of Acer Predator gaming machines.
These are machines that not only have high performance Intel processors, graphic cards and power management but were seen as ideal by content creators who were either using MACS or other Windows based machines to generate content.
15% of these users never played games on a PC but they needed “sheer power and performance” something that Acer is now delivering in their Concept D boxes which will go on sale in Australia shortly.
Tiffany Huang COO Acer Inc
According to Ms Huang there were several key criteriums the new boxes had to meet apart from graphics and speed.
“We need to make them quieter as creatives work in noisy environments” she said.
“As a result of this intelligence we have been able to deliver a machine that is 40% less noisy than a Predator gaming machine” she said.
Another big improvement was colour management with the new boxes up there with the best in base line colour management claims Huang.
The new D 900 desktop comes in a smart looking tower that features a woodgrain, Qi-enabled top.
Instead of having to poke around the back or sides of a machine users can now plug their headphones into a jack on the top of the machine where there is also a hook on the front of the box for video producers.
Unlike their Predator range where thermals are an issue Acer has delivered significantly improved graphics and colour management.
The ConceptD 9 is the flagship of the lineup, boasting a 17-inch 4K display that’s Pantone validated and has a Delta-E accuracy rating of less than 1. (0 is perfect.) It also uses a swiveling Ezel hinge for maximum flexibility and comes with a Wacom pen.
The bezels on the D 9 are pretty thick, but some may be willing to live with that trade-off.
The creative notebook is powered by a 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 CPU, and supports up to 1TB of SSD storage. Acer’s notebook supports a variety of modern connections, including Thunderbolt 3, USB Type-C and DisplayPort 1.4.
Known as a Company that delivers “value” PCs and commodity systems that offer good specs for the price. The brand has been adopted by educational institutions and schools in Australia, this is a market that Steve Jobs wanted Apple to dominate as he saw this as the breeding ground for future generation of content creators and business decision makers.
According to Huang Acer is fast learning how to chase “micro-trends,” courting users whose numbers might be too small—or their needs a little too niche—to draw much attention from bigger players.
Acer sees an opportunity to shine by providing resources for niche markets such as creatives. It’s also proving to be profitable for Acer who in Australia recently reported a 172% increase in sales.
Today Acer is chasing “progress through innovation.”
“innovation that excites people, gives people a good reason why they need a new PC.” Said Huang.
Huang believes that the polished design and unusually quiet fans will make the PCs appealing to not only the business user but businesses and home users who often run a business from their abode.
Huang described Concept D as responding to a “microtrend,” it’s a movement Acer is committing to with more product.
She claims that the new notebooks, desktops, monitors, and VR/AR headsets introduced recently in New York is “just the beginning” with the local subsidiary set to roll out several new products shortly.
In Australia is refusing to get in a consumer PC race to the bottom. According to Acer Australia CEO Darren Simmons “There is no point giving money away in the consumer market in what is fast becoming a discount market”.
“We are picking our retail partners carefully while also protecting our bottom line” he said.
Recently senior HP executives told ChannelNews that they were concerned about the lack of margin for brands in the consumer market.
“We are selling bucketloads of volume but not necessarily making a profit” they said.
Lenovo who recently moved to take on Acers dominant position in the gaming market with a new range of Legion PC’s is now selling large volumes of PC’s direct via the Companies online store a move that could see consumer sales stripped from retailer.
Several of the big PC brands have said that retail discounting by the likes of Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi may be good for the consumer but it’s not good for PC brands.
