At a press conference in Amsterdam yesterday, Acer announced a new partner programme, its education-focused venture with Intel, and new products.
The new partner programme, “Synergy”, aims to make it easier than ever for Acer’s channel partners to work even closer with them in an effort to “meet the business and technological needs of Acer’s channel partners and provide on-going support of how Acer and its partners can better work together”.
That means Acer is putting measures in place to make it easier for its distributors to work with Acer, and in turn provide better service for their customers in terms of the products on offer and after-sales service and support. They are also bringing new tablets and portable PCs to market that have been designed to take advantage of new trends (touch, convertibility, portability) that they are hoping will excite the buying public, as well as refreshed TravelMate business notebooks.
One of the most promising new products that were announced was the new TravelMate X313, a convertible Windows 8 Ultrabook that has been designed for business use, both in and out of the office by middle and senior management. It comes with either a Bluetooth keyboard/cover combo or a “business cradle” that offers additional USB 3.0 ports, a VGA output and a full-sized Ethernet jack. It has been kitted out with various security measures that big-company IT admins will welcome: the X313 has a TPM chip (Trusted Platform Module) that secures sensitive business data, facial recognition tech to tightly control access to the machine, and Intel’s Anti-Theft Technology that ensures total data safety even if the machine gets stolen, as well as various recovery options.
I was very happy to see that the X313 isn’t a lightweight in the processor department, with a 3rd-gen Core i5 chip doing the heavy lifting making it a versatile office machine as well as a super-portable one. On paper, anyway – I am looking forward to spending some more time with it under review conditions.
Acer took the opportunity to re-iterate its “Acer Reliability Promise” that essentially says any qualifying Acer product purchased between January 21 2013 and 31 December 2013 is eligible for a refund of 50% of its purchase price should it fail within the first year of ownership. That obviously excludes failure caused by abuse or mistreatment on the owner’s part, but still, that’s pretty impressive: that’s a 50% refund in addition to being fixed free of charge. This was all according to the Vice President of Acer’s Commercial Division for EMEA, Jakob Olsen, who led the presentation.
Also announced at the press conference was Acer’s partnership with Intel Education Software (IES) that will make its way into more of Acer’s notebooks and tablets in the near future; it’s already available in the TravelMate B113 notebook, the X313 Ultrabook and the Iconia W510 tablets.
According to Acer, “The IES suite helps students to foster 21st century skills, such as communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and digital literacy. In addition to empowering educators by enhancing the learning experience and efficiently managing their classroom it also supports existing IT systems by protecting students, securing data, and managing infrastructures.”
Essentially, Intel’s educational software will run on Acer’s hardware, which will make its way into schools to make it easier for teachers to both teach, and maintain control of the classroom environment. That’s pretty good, really – if it’s one thing the world needs it’s better access to education, and this solution has the potential to fill that need.
I will be following up with Acer’s SA representatives on my return to bring you more news of how all of this impacts on local consumers. Stay tuned.
