Acer looking to reinforce their server segment

The Taiwanese group isn’t towards the top of professional server sales list, but they are certainly looking to take advantage of increased demand in this market segment with the aim of taking market share.

2010 looks like it will be an intense year for the Acer group who have decided to take advantage of increasing growth anywhere they can find it. We have already pointed out that they have ambitious goals in the mobile products field, but it appears that the server lines may also be moving.

Acer managed to take second place in the world at the expense of the Dell for general public PC sales at the end of last year, still behind Hewlett-Packard (HP), although maintaining pressure in this market segment.

But Gianfranco Lanci, president of Acer, underlined during an interview that it wasn’t good enough for Acer to be known as a great brand in just the general public computer market, but to be known in all segments.

Taking advantage of general public and professional growth
Acer already has a servers line (the Altos range) but the group wants to reinforce this by the end of the year as it currently only represents 4% of their sales, while the profit margins are twice as good when compared to other product lines, with nearly 20% net profit while the overall average is 10%.

This presence on the professional market should also help sell more conventional computers to enterprise. Acer is looking to take advantage of computer sales growth to the general public and, of course the professional sector which saw reduced spending in 2008-2009 due to the global financial crisis.

Market watchers note that the Acer server range will take a while to be profitable, with the group firstly looking to consolidate their distribution channels. They will also have to pull strings in a very competitive market with other manufacturers already well placed, while also competing against new entrants like Cisco and the new Oracle/Sun hybrid.