Acer Inc, one of the fastest-growing companies in the business, announced innovative new home computers yesterday, but all eyes were on the company’s shock announcement that while sales for January to July were up 21% on the same period last year, sales for July were off 15% at $132m, raising fears that cheerful talk that it will all come right in the fourth quarter may be misplaced. The new computers lines from Acer’s Acer America unit are the Acer Aspire Ultimate Solution, Acer Aspire Personal Solution and Acer Aspire Office Solution. Best innovation on all the machines is a quick start procedure that boots the computer up in four seconds. The noise level is also much reduced. The Personal Solution, with ready-to-go Internet access, video memory, CD-ROM drive, IBM Corp P120, P150 or P166 processors – Cyrix Corp-designed chips in IBM colors – and stereo sound, will go for $1,200 to $2,000 and is out now in charcoal grey or emerald green case. The Ultimate Solution with 166MHz or 2 00MHz Pentium will be out in September at $2,500 to $3,000. The Office Solution is out later in August for $1,500 to $2,200 with 120MHz to 166MHz Pentium, and comes preloaded with PointCast, America Online Inc access software and business packages.
