<P>Acer is celebrating a successful 2006 in which it climbed to third place in the UK PC&nbsp;market and overtook Dell to take the number one spot in notebooks, further confirmation of the pre-eminence of the channel sales model, through which Acer does it's business.</P>
<P>UK country manager Semmy Levit stressed that, while Acer is happy with it's relationship with "The big three" - Tesco, DSG and Comet - it is now keen to increase its profile with the indie sector. Acer is also keen to increase the average selling price of it's products, insisting "our goal is not to be cheap," andthat Acer's success is more down to its business model than to price-cutting. "The indirect model produces lower overheads and offers an advantage over the direct model," he said.</P>
<P>Acer also announced its strategy for 2007, which will focus on three main business areas: mobility, enterprise and convergence. On the subject of mobility, Acer UK MD Gianpiero Morbello believes the key theme is evolution.<BR>"The notebook will get smaller and will become more specialised to perform specific functions. Wimax and embedded 3G will also be key mobility technologies," he said.<BR>At the enterprise level, Morbello said that Acer is excited about its new three-litre small form factor PC's. He also said that Acer is ramping up its server activity around Europe, but doesn't expect this to affect its UK operations until this autumn. Morbello believes convergence with the consumer electronics sector "will happen faster than people expect," and announced a renewal of focus on its TV business. Acer has been producing TV's for at least a couple of years, but the belief that TV will be the hub of the digital home has meant greater importance wil be put on its own TV products.</P>
<P>Lastly, Acer announced a reorganisation of its business units to create seperate 'professional' and 'consumer' divisions. Part of the reason for this appears to have been to address the DOA issues that have sullied its relationship with some of its partners in the past.<BR>"This split has meant we are able to give the channel new benefits such as improved DOA on TravelMate, up to 14 days swap," said Levit. "it also means that indices can offer their customers something that they will not find in the national retail chais, so they will not be subject to the same price and margin pressures they were in 2006."</P>