Acer
More info
- Creator
- Stan Shih, Carolyn Yeh and others
- Released
- 1976
- Type
- PC manufacturer
Taiwan's first big PC brand, which grew by buying the American budget labels it once competed with.
Stan Shih and a handful of colleagues started Multitech in 1976 on capital that barely covered the rent. It sold microprocessor training kits, then IBM-compatible PCs, and renamed itself Acer in 1987. Shih is known for the "smile curve": the value sits in R&D and branding at one end and in sales and service at the other, while assembly in the middle earns the least.
Acting on that, the company split itself up: manufacturing became Wistron in 2000 and the components business became BenQ. Acer then bought Gateway in 2007 and Packard Bell in 2008, and was briefly the world's second-largest PC maker. The netbook boom helped it more than most, and the end of the boom hurt it just as much.