Acer: Microsoft Surface 'Negative For The Whole PC Industry'

Shortly after Microsoft announced its upcoming Surface tablet, there was speculation that it might sour the company's relationships with OEM partners. Statements from an Acer spokesperson indicate that's definitely the case. The spokesperson told Bloomberg, "On one hand Microsoft is our partner, but on the other, Microsoft’s move makes them compete not only with us but all PC makers. We think that Microsoft’s launch of its own-brand products is negative for the whole PC industry." The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products.

Comments

Well of course it is, and it's Acer's fault

[holophrastic]

Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't. Sure they made one or two, but those weren't anything ipad-competitive, and Acer didn't market them at all.

So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. . .since no one else seems willing to do so.

And yes, in order to do so itself, microsoft needs to make the entire solution, and market the entire solution, and take all of the risk, and force the start screen, and everything else that may be required to compete with the iPad.

And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners. And if those tablets are very successful, Microsoft will rightfully keep things for itself. And if they fail entirely, then Acer will be right.

It's that simple.

So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.

Re:Pot Calling The Kettle A Racist Word

[FireFury03]

I have owned a couple of Acer laptops over the years and they were great bang for buck. They were cheap and broke down, but by then I wanted an upgrade anyway. Buying a higher end machine would have still been out of date, I would still want to update, and the resale value would not pay back the difference I initially paid...

I've got an Acer laptop and will never buy from Acer again.

It kills batteries - after only a year their capacity is significantly degraded. But Acer considers batteries "consumables" so the fact that the charger in the laptop kills them isn't covered by the warranty.

They flatly refused to refund my Windows licence fee (first thing I did when I got the machine was wipe Windows since I have no use for it). Not that long after they did this a French court ruled that they weren't allowed to decline to refund the Windows licence so I guess I should've tried again.

The machine has a DSDT bug, which I reported to them, then I wrote a DSDT patch and sent that to them too in the hope that they might release a new BIOS for the machine to correct it. They won't even acknowledge my emails any more: http://www.nexusuk.org/~steve/acer.xhtml

I find the hardware largely ok, but their complete refusal to provide any kind of after-sales support, even for design defects, would stop me buying from them again.