Welcome to a laptop battery specialist of the Acer Laptop Battery
There is no rest for the wicked, or anyone else this summer, as last week had a number of big events.
One of the largest is that Acer moved around Lenovo and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) (which is also coming up fast) to become the No. 3 PC manufacturer by buying Gateway (NYSE: GTW).
For those who wanted an iPhone but couldn't afford it, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has stepped up to the plate -- but the really big news is that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is getting closer with what really could be an iPhone killer. In addition, it is probably based at least partially on Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) technology. The strategy behind that really showcases Google's brilliance.
Finally we'll have my product of the week: A PC solution that makes the US$100 laptop with battery like Acer BTP-APJ1 Battery , Acer BTP-AQJ1 Battery , Acer BTP-ARJ1 Battery , Acer BATCL32 battery , Acer BATCL32L battery , Acer Aspire 2000 battery , Acer Aspire 2016 battery , Acer Aspire 2200 battery , Acer BATBL50L6 battery for every child thing (which is actually closer to $200) look expensive. This one is running about $60, cutting a broad swath through education both domestically and in emerging markets.
Acer has been quietly building solid products and getting strong gains for some time now. As most of you who read me know, I have an affinity for the AMD-based Ferrari notebooks it makes.
Coming up behind them is Asus which, coincidently, has a Lamborghini line based on Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) that I understand is also very nice.
Last week, Acer moved to buy Gateway, and the PC world was changed again.
Acer has been trying to grow into the European and U.S. markets aggressively, but has run into problems acquiring the shelf space it needed to sell its products.
HP (NYSE: HPQ), Gateway, Toshiba and Sony (NYSE: SNE) have simply not given up the space needed for Acer to expand as it wants.
Lenovo, the powerhouse PC company out of China, wasn't making things easy and was out-bidding Acer for Packard Bell in Europe, Acer's planned path to shelf space there.
So Acer evidently decided to kill two birds with one stone and acquired Gateway, which had the right of first refusal on any Packard Bell sale (thanks to an old noncompete with the new owner of Packard Bell). You don't see one of these martial-arts plays that often, and this appears to have been very well played.
I doubt Lenovo is going to let this lie though, and will likely ramp up its own efforts in retail in response. The stories surrounding all of this are fascinating.