Lenovo may ally itself with Acer

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bofh · #1 Post by **bofh** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:22 am

It's of Lenovo's the best interest to join hands with Acer, its third largest competitor and the alliance will help improve Lenovo's status among the four major PC makers – Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Acer, Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's chairman, told reporters in Shanghai yesterday.
...
Though the two companies haven't officially joined together, Acer has shown interest in the proposal, the newspaper said.

http://202.101.38.80/art/2006/10/17/294 ... h_Acer.htm
(Yes, they are only reachable via an IP-Adress)

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:25 am

Acer made at least some of the IBM Aptivas. Need I say more?

#3 Post by **JaneL** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:29 am

That's pretty scary. Didn't Acer also make some of the TP 3xx models?

#4 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:36 am

Acer manufactured the i Series and the 310s. I know that IBM manufactured the 365s and 380s but I'm not sure about the 390s.

dsigma6 · #5 Post by **dsigma6** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:39 am

AlphaKilo470 wrote:Acer manufactured the i Series and the 310s.

Does that mean they sucked? Or am I just being judgemental?

#6 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:47 pm

The iSeries were pretty crappy. They got the job done and featured good keyboards but most of the screens were passive matrix, the cases were cheap and among all models of the i Series, it's common for the power connector to break off if you're not careful with it.

The 310s were pretty good. Most featured passive matrix screens as well but they had pretty durable cases, were solid as a rock, easily upgradable thanks to the socket 7 desktop cpus they used and the keyboards were pretty good.

#7 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:12 pm

dsigma6 wrote:<snip>
Does that mean they sucked? Or am I just being judgemental?

No you are not being judgemental, just accurate

... JDH

#8 Post by **underclocker** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:25 pm

I remember reading that Acer made the R30, R31, R32 and, I think, R40's.

My experience with all these was that they were OK. The R5x series is better.

Website · #9 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:48 pm

AlphaKilo470 wrote:The iSeries were pretty crappy. They got the job done <snip>

They were/are also a nightmare to work on. On two different i1400s that I have worked on, the little white cable that connects the power/hotkey board to the systemboard, broke on me. They just broke from wear on both ends.

christopher_wolf · #10 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:56 pm

Dear lord...

Not Acer getting licensed to make Thinkpads *again*; I sure hope it doesn't come to that. I think IBM learned that lesson with the i Series. I never really saw the point in such arrangements. True, the i Series did work as they should have, but the similarity to the other Thinkpads ended there. I found this out for myself when I was working on a, supposedly, top-of-the-line (at the time) i1400....it had its own spate of annoying hardware issues that, for the only time I can remember, were difficult to actually fix as opposed to the ease with which you can take apart/put back together a T Series.

Website · #11 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:09 pm

...and lets not forget that the plastics broke if you looked at them wrong. (says the two i1400's in my possession)

One note though: I just got one of my i1400's up and running thanks to "thinkie" for the spare parts. Now, if I can just find a harddrive connector for this series.

#12 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:43 pm

The life of my i1210 which I had for only two weeks:

*Upon upgrading HD, huge crack forms in bottom case
*Screw for left hinge breaks during car trip
*Cracks discovered on bottom corners
*Power connector breaks off; I find out about this when not only does the battery not charge but a short circuit is discovered after I see smoke come out of the jack and the smell of PCB floods the room
*I decide I had enough with the machine and ripped it to pieces and sold what was still good.

Oh yeah, and from day one the internal modem never worked. It would cause my phone line to go dead whenever plugged in (phone line worked again after unplugging modem).

tfflivemb2 wrote:One note though: I just got one of my i1400's up and running thanks to "thinkie" for the spare parts. Now, if I can just find a harddrive connector for this series.

If the i1400 uses the same connector as the i1200 and i1300, I have the part you need.

#13 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:34 am

IMO not a good idea for lenovo to be painted with acer's reputation..
not at this early stage in the life of lenovo..

stock is at $8.50 today..
low point was $5 and high was $10..

christopher_wolf · #14 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:37 am

BillMorrow wrote:IMO not a good idea for lenovo to be painted with acer's reputation..
not at this early stage in the life of lenovo..

That's just it, they already own most of the, far superior, "Thinkpad" brand from IBM...Why do they want to associate with Acer and, for those who have had the i Series, a possible repeat of what went on with the i Series. They paid alot of money for the Thinkpad name, now they want to spend even more for something...not IBM or Thinkpad? This is kind of like Hitachi buying the Storage Division from IBM and then adding more and more stuff to it even though it was barely making many profits for IBM to begin with.

skitty4gzus · #15 Post by **skitty4gzus** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:45 am

as long as Acer doesnt take over production or development of TP's I will be fine. If they do get a hold of some power it looks like I will be holding onto my t42p for a long time. Those Acer's are miserable pieces. The one I had for work about 4 months ago was brand new out of the box. Cheap build, flimsy, very low resolution screen, and 45 minutes of battery. No lie or exaggeration. By the time I got the thing out of the van and up on the roof, it needed to be put back on the charger!!!

Thinkpaddict · #16 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:28 am

Like everybody else, I just don't see how this makes any sense from a business point of view. I don't think they would do it to save costs (after all, Lenovo is a Chinese company already.) What is the point?

beeblebrox · #17 Post by **beeblebrox** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:20 am

The point is that there is extreme competition on the market right now. HP and Dell are extremely successful at the moment, and all other smaller competitors are being squeezed. Margins for a notebook at around $500-600 are tiny.

Lenovo needs to accumulate much more production volume to reach some better economies of scale. And Acer is pretty solid and reliable.

You should not forget that notebooks are built exactly to specification. If the Acer Cheapbook costs $500 at the store, then subtract shipping, marketing and overhead and you have a notebook built for a target price of $200-300. Take the Pentium out and the rest of the notebook cost $130-250.

What quality do you expect for that money?
A cheapbook.

On the other hand, AU Optronics, Wistron and Acer OEM manufacturing (it is all Acer companies) Do produce high quality stuff. It is all a question on price and target.

Taiwan (Acer) and China (Lenovo) are having very tight cooperations and investments. Both are Chinese, and there is some great merger going on. Foxconn, Quanta, Flextronics, etc. are in turmoil at the moment with acquisitions.

I guess, in a few years, some major notebook brands will have gone byebye. I only hope that Lenovo will survive and not end as the third business line of HP or Dell.

AND... the iSeries S30/S31 where a real gem. One of the finest subnotebooks I have ever seen. VERY expensive when they came out and of top quality.

Lenovo may ally itself with Acer

Lenovo may ally itself with Acer

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