By 2005, Acer employed a scant 7,800 people worldwide. In 2001, the company sold its manufacturing units BenQ and Wistron in order to focus resources on design and sales.Īcer increased worldwide sales while simultaneously reducing its labor force by identifying and using marketing strategies that best utilized their existing distribution channels. The restructuring resulted in two primary units: brand name sales and contract manufacturing. To dispel complaints from clients that Acer competed with its own products and to alleviate the competitive nature of the branded sales versus contract manufacturing businesses, the company spun off the contract business in 2000, renaming it Wistron Corporation. In 1998, Acer reorganized into five groups: Acer International Service Group, Acer Sertek Service Group, Acer Semiconductor Group, Acer Information Products Group, and Acer Peripherals Group.
It produced the Micro-Professor MPF-I training kit, then two Apple II clones–the Microprofessor II and III–before joining the emerging IBM PC compatible market and becoming a significant PC manufacturer. Initially, it was primarily a distributor of electronic parts and a consultant in the use of microprocessor technologies. The company began with eleven employees and US$25,000 in capital.
Īcer was founded in 1976 by Stan Shih ( Chinese: 施振榮), his wife Carolyn Yeh, and five others as Multitech in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. Currently, in addition to its core IT products business, Acer also has a new business entity that focuses on the integration of cloud services and platforms, and the development of smartphones and wearable devices with value-added IoT applications. In the early 2000s, Acer implemented a new business model, shifting from a manufacturer to a designer, marketer, and distributor of products, while performing production processes via contract manufacturers. Acer is the world's 6th-largest PC vendor by unit sales as of January 2021. Its products include desktop PCs, laptop PCs ( clamshells, 2-in-1s, convertibles and Chromebooks), tablets, servers, storage devices, virtual reality devices, displays, smartphones and peripherals, as well as gaming PCs and accessories under its Predator brand. ( / ˈ eɪ s ər/ AY-sər) is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specializing in advanced electronics technology, headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City.