The Acer Guy

It’s coming up to 5:30am on Friday and the Global Press Conference has now come to a close. I’m (understandably) very tired but it’s all been worth it. I personally think it was a resounding success but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Clearly this year, the fact that there are now three companies (and four brands – Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines) under the Acer “umbrella” makes whatever story Acer has to tell a lot more interesting.

The name we gave the event, was “Shaping the Future”. The point here was not only to illustrate Acer’s idea of its products and the impact they have but also to talk about how these four brands can coexist and “shape” a common future together.

So one of the hot topics was what Acer calls its “Multibrand Strategy”. Essentially, Acer has no intention of shutting down or merging the brands into one massive whole. Rather the idea is to develop specific products for specific targets in specific regions.

In other words, Acer could, say, become a “technological” brand with products made to satisfy specific needs, while Packard Bell and Gateway would occupy another market segment with, for instance, more fashion-oriented products, Packard Bell in Europe and Gateway in the US (including Canada and South America) and also in Asia.

I invite you to read the press release on this subject if you want to official version of what they have in mind.

In the afternoon there were individual sessions with each of the three brands exploring their own specific role within the group. I got to meet some wonderful people including the ever-friendly Hugues Gontier, Marketing & Communication Director for Packard Bell, Mark Hill, vice president of U.S. channel sales and Gary Elsasser, former vice president of Gateway computers and now Vice President of the stationary Business Unit, IT products and Global Operations who not only was a really friendly guy but also gave a great presentation of products I’m sorry we wont see in Europe. Blame it on strategy…

Then all hell broke loose.

Once the main event had finished, of course we were free to let out hair down and enjoy the gala dinner. Usually these things are the most boring, soul-sapping events but this evening was organized in the old railway museum in Budapest and to get there we had a short ride on the Orient Express which was I must say pretty damned amazing.

I was lucky enough to find myself at the table with some amazing people including Denis Vitchevsky from Walla! Computers and Gal Nedivi, both from Israel, Roger L. Kay from Endpoint Technologies Associates, and Rob Enderle from the Enderle Group who not only were wonderful dinner companions but also gave some pretty good advice on the future of the Acer Guy. Roger in particular, was instrumental in me deciding that I need to get my “house” in order. Don’t remember the last time I had so much fun at dinner.

Tomorrow (in a few hours - actually) we finally get some time to see Budapest and then it’s back home. Great event. Great evening. Great people.

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