Acer cautious about Windows 8, not confident of PC sales growth

While the industry is gearing up for Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, not all the hardware manufacturers seem to be too hopeful of the product. According to The Inquirer, Acer seems to be one of these, as Kevin Lu, a spokesperson for Acer has said that they’re rethinking their growth predictions down to 5 percent from an earlier 10 percent. He said that distributors and vendors are more cautious when it comes to building their stocks of products, ever since the launch of Apple’s iPad. There are other reasons for this too. Microsoft has clearly announced that Windows 8 has the same hardware requirements as Windows 7, which means that users won’t really feel the need to upgrade. PC manufacturers such as Acer would normally find organizations and personal computer users upgrading to new hardware in the form of PCs and notebooks, but it looks like that might not be the case this time around.

Acer had also raised concerns over the success of the Surface tablet a few weeks back. The report by Reuters stated that sources had informed them that PC manufacturers were kept unaware about Microsoft's plans of building the Surface. The report states that Oliver Ahrens, Acer's senior VP and president for Europe, Middle East and Africa claimed that Microsoft was trying to adopt Apple’s strategy and he was doubtful with the Surface, and that it would succeed. He stated, “I don't think it will be successful because you cannot be a hardware player with two products.” He said Microsoft would need to change some aspects of its game in order to compete with the likes of Apple. He went on to add, “Microsoft is working with two dozen PC vendors worldwide, including the local guys, whereas Apple is alone, it can more or less do what it wants. Microsoft is a component of a PC system. A very important component but still a component.”

As per a report by Digitimes, Acer founder, Stan Shih had spoken about the Microsoft Surface. The report reads, “Acer founder Stan Shih has commented that Microsoft has no real intention to sell own-brand tablet PCs and the offering is an ploy to boost adoption of Windows 8. Microsoft hopes that marketing its own-brand tablet PCs will encourage vendors to offer Windows 8 tablet PCs and thereby help expand market demand for the product line, Shih analyzed. Once the purpose is realized, Microsoft will not offer more models, Shih said. Vendors adopting Windows 8 should interpret Microsoft's intentions positively, as they will benefit from Microsoft's marketing, Shih indicated.” He went on to state that Microsoft would earn more profit from licensing their software and said that they have no reasons to sell their hardware and may face many difficulties in marketing the tablet PCs on their own.