Acer Putting its Money on Netbooks, Gateway Netbook In Works

This morning I attended Acer’s global press conference in Budapest, Hungary. Sure Acer President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci announced that the company will be a sponsor of the 2010 Olympics and his goal is to be the number one PC manufacturer by 2011, but I was listening up for all the netbook news I could get. “Netbooks are a very good solution for mobile people, and help to satisfy certain needs,” Lanci stated in his speech. When asked by a journalist if the margins of netbooks weren’t worth the manufacering costs he stated, “the margin impact of netbooks is better than on notebooks. The margin of netbooks is not a problem.” Acer’s Aspire one seems to be only the start of Acer’s netbook conquest. Predicting that 10 million netbooks will be sold in 2008 and 25 million in 2009, Lanci annouced that Gateway, which was aquired by the company last year, will enter the netbook market as well. When asked if Acer will expland its Aspire one line with larger screens he answered by saying there will be future generation products that may have larger screens. Acer also annouced in a press release today that the Aspire one with 3G will be avilable by October and with WiMax by 2009. Acer also detailed plans to enter the mobile Internet device and smart phone space in early 2009. Few details were shared on the mobile Internet device, however, President of IT Products Business Group Jim Wong stated that it will most likely run Intel’s Atom (Diamondville) platform.The slide below may reveal a bit about what the device may look like.