HD-capable PC strategy by Taiwan's Acer(Computex Taipei 2008 Report)

HD-capable PC strategy by Taiwan's Acer
Computex Taipei 2008 Report

　Acer, Inc., after Hewlett-Packard and Dell Computer, is a leading PC vendor with the third market share in the world. Acer's booth at Computex Taipei 2008 demonstrated Aspire One, the first UMPC*¹ by the company, a range of entertainment notebook PCs, high-performance PCs for gamers, and so forth. In there, PC's trend towards HD seems quite popular and increasingly standard except for UMPCs. There, we can observe market segmentation, design and branding strategies are key to win the competitive advantage in the fiercely competitive PC industry.

　Reported in this article is the latest PC's trend towards HD, elemental technologies relevant to HD, and popularization of HD-capable PCs, with Acer's PC product lines demonstrated at Computex Taipei 2008 as an example.

PCI-Express as the mainstream interface, full-HD resolution support increasing as well

　In Acer's booth, Aspire One, a low-cost mini notebook PC, which Acer calls a mobile Internet device, competing with ASUSTeK’s Eee PC, was drawing particular attention (Figure 1). Meanwhile, they also demonstrated a full line of PCs including authentic multimedia PCs, Aspire Gemstone Blue, high-end entertainment notebook PCs released in this March (Figure 2-1,2-2), and Aspire PREDATOR, high-performance and high-end gaming PCs (Figure 3-1,3-2).

　Except for low-priced mini notebook PCs such as Aspire One, models equipped with PCI-Express interface were popular and almost standard. For example, Aspire M5201, a desktop multimedia PC (Figure 4), has each one of PCI-Express x16 and x1; Aspire PREDATOR has three x16, two x1, and one x8. These models exemplified the direction that PCs are equipped with adequate PCI-Express slots for graphics (x16) and other extensions (x1 to x8), depending on each application. Aspire Gemstone Blue notebook PCs support ExpressCard x1, based on PCI-Express x1.

　As to the resolutions as well, many models employed graphic boards that support the full-HD (1920 x 1080) specification, realizing a resolution of full-HD or beyond. As for Aspire Gemstone Blue notebook PCs, the built-in liquid crystal display is of 1366 x 768, not full-HD, but they can show full-HD images on external displays connected to them.

More models with HDMI ports

　When connecting a PC to a large liquid crystal display supporting full-HD, it is likely to use a so-called HDMI port, based on the HDMI*² interface standard. Since PCs today are likely to handle HD video often than not, more models in the mid-range or higher are equipped with HDMI ports in addition to VGA. PCs displayed in Acer's booth followed such a trend; either the desktop M series or Gemstone Blue entertainment notebooks, offered an HDMI port as an option. Meanwhile, Aspire PREDATOR for gamers does not offer an HDMI port but DVI-D, due to the specification of the built-in graphic board. However, the quality of full-HD video displayed is by no means inferior.

Graphic boards increasingly adopt parallel processing techniques

　Full-HD video on a PC requires high performance for the graphics. Acer's PCs apparently showed such tendencies. M5201 series, authentic desktop/tower multimedia models, employ ATI's Crossfire X, and PREDATOR adopts NVIDIA's 3-way SLI*³, both of which are parallelization techniques for graphic boards, realizing superior graphic performance during HD and/or 3D video playback. Although Gemstone Blue PCs, notebook models, do not allow such parallelization of graphic boards, GeForce 9500M GS, supporting NVIDIA's PureVideo HD technology, does allow to smoothly play back full-HD video without having to depend on the CPU performance.

Blu-ray Disc drives for PCs to become popular finally?

　As the media that provide full-HD video contents, Blu-ray Disc comes in to play. However, mainly because of the standardization war with HD DVD, Blu-ray had yet to begin a full-scale popularization until last year. Now that the HD DVD camp had withdrawn early this year, Blu-ray became the de fact standard of the next generation DVD, finally showing the sign of real permeation in the market.

　As if to support it, PCs and equipment featuring Blu-ray increased at this Computex. Acer also offers Blu-ray Disc drive as an option for any of authentic Aspire M5200 series, Aspire Gemstone Blue entertainment notebook, or Aspire PREDATOR for gamers.

　In the future, the more Blu-ray Disc contents are supplied and HD video editing with AVCHD*⁴, technologically a close cousin of Blu-ray for HD camcorders, is done on a PC routinely, even the more Blu-ray Disc drives will be built into PCs.

Strategic pivot: segmentation, branding, and design

　Hereinbefore, mainly around HD video processing features, we have attempted a comparative analysis among the PC product lines of Acer. As a result, we would list three factors, segmentations, branding, and design, of which we believe Acer is strongly conscious, as their PC product strategy.

　In the future, too, according to Moore's Law, the PC performance per cost will continue to improve. It will be possible for ordinary PCs to play back or process HD video as well. Also, as a result of horizontal structure and standardization brought about in the PC industry, it seems increasingly difficult to sell a small number of PC models in large quantities, based solely on the performance and features. Therefore, unless you divide the market per every attribute of the customers and provide them with products that can realize the features and performance that match the customer attributes at the best cost possible, it is difficult to be successful.

　Acer seems to have a quite clear market segmentation strategy: the M-series would be rather for average home users who want to enjoy multimedia; Gemstone Blue for sophisticated users with high touch; and PREDATOR for enthusiasts who enjoy the latest PC games. The design of each PC product line is determined according to the segmentation strategy. Heavy gamers would love the gimmicky PREDATOR design, but average home users and high-touch users would probably respond negatively.

　This way, based on clear market segmentation and product design, branding strategy for a product line is performed, which differentiates the company from the competition. In Acer’s case, their branding is successful if consumers come up with Gemstone Blue for entertainment notebook PCs and PREDATOR for gaming PCs.

　As Acer is about to develop a full-scale business in Japan, they aim to improve their visibility with their premium brand Ferrari notebook PCs and the Gemstone line sold in Japan. It would be intriguing to see how much market share Acer, with the third market share in the world, can win in the Japanese market in the future.

- Notes on Acronyms:
*1) UMPC: Ultra-Mobile PC
*2) HDMI: High Definition Multimedia Interface
*3) SLI: Scalable Line Interconnect
*4) AVCHD: Advanced Video Codec High Definition