Think Acer, and you think computers, but soon you will be adding mobile phones to the Acer category as Acer is likely to launch their first mobile handset sometime later end of this year or perhaps early 09. Acer’s first step into the mobile phone arena will be Microsoft based sates Acer’s company president.

President of Acer, Gianfranco Lanci, said at Acer’s first quarter investor’s conference in Taipei: “Smartphone will represent as much as 10% of Acer’s revenue within the next few years.” Acer, the 3rd largest PC vendor in the world actually owns several brand names now which include Packard Bell in Europe, and Gateway Inc in the US.

Lanci added that any smartphones launched by Acer could enter the mobile market under any of Acer’s brand names. Acer’s entry into the mobile phone market place is probably due to their $207.3millon deal to purchase mobile handset manufacturer E-Ten Information Systems Co. of Taiwan last month.

As most know E-Ten has developed and sold a few smartphone modles in the past including their Windows Mobile 6.0 Glofiish with GPS in addition to other devices such as Pocket PC’s and GPS.” Acer wants to sell mobile phones, E-Ten has stopped selling them, and GPS is already becoming a standard piece of mobile phones rather than a stand-alone deice,” said Lanci.

J.W.Tang, chairmen of Acer says: “We won’t get involved in the cutthroat market for voice-style mobile phones.” he believes with the purchase of E-Ten Acer is now at the forefront in the trends of communication and computing converging on a single device.” And went on to confirm, The company plans to sell its smart phones through mobile phone network operators. It takes six to nine months to convince an operator to market a new smart phone. Acer will use its existing relationships with telecommunications companies to speed up such sales.”

Source — computerworld