Acer is set to push different datacenter solutions for the consumer and enterprise markets. Acer Cloud, targeting the consumer market, will be launched in the second quarter, while Acer's e-Enabling Data Center (eDC) business, targeting enterprises and government units, is set to start pilot runs in countries in Southeast Asia such as Thailand and Malaysia, initially. Acer also reportedly will spin off the eDC business into an independent company to allow it to have a broader operating space.
Acer plans to push out Acer Cloud in North America and the Greater China region in April, supporting connectivity from Acer's PCs and handset devices for online storage and synchronization. The service will expand globally by the fourth quarter with expectations to see 30-40% of Acer's global IT devices to be carrying the Acer Cloud solution by the end of 2012.
As for Acer's eDC business, current revenues are mainly generated from its hosting services with major clients including Google and the Taiwan Lottery. The company owns land with a total area close to 60,000 square meters in Taoyuan, Taiwan for datacenter use, and Acer has already established a datacenter with an area of 23,140 square meters on the site. Since its entrance in 2010, the company has been upgrading its cloud computing services and added services including online ticket ordering, a score checking system for the Ministry of Examination of Taiwan and an online Chinese learning system.
In 2011, Acer's eDC business achieved revenues of NT$1.3 billion (US$44.08 million), with 90% contributed by hosting services and the remaining 10% from cloud computing services, but as demand for the company's cloud computing services will increase, the segment's proportion is expected to surpass 20% in 2012.
However, Acer chairman JT Wang has recently expressed publicly that the datacenter is not a good business since it consumes high amounts of water and electricity, and also generates high carbon emissions that greatly affected Acer's carbon emissions rating. Therefore, some market watchers believe Wang's speech might be related to Acer's plans to spin off the eDC business.
JT Wang, Acer chairman recently said that datacenter is not a good business
Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes file photo
Article translated by Joseph Tsai
