Acer appears to be branching out into pretty much every new area that's getting even a slight bit of buzz. Bloomberg reports that the company has a notebook running Google Chrome OS coming in Q3, 2010. After the initial launch, Acer plans to offer Chrome on as many as 10 percent of the company's netbooks. Acer hopes to sell as many as a million Chrome-based netbooks by the end of te year. There's no information about the hardware that will power these netbooks.
The report also says Acer has an eBook reader on its way and that the company plans to offer an app store for downloading software as well as eBooks.
Of course, Acer isn't entering these markets just to make us happy. There's a pretty significant profit motive behind each move. Chrome OS will likely be free to license, which makes it an appealing alternative to Windows 7 for netbooks. And while Acer surely hopes to make some money off of eBook reader hardware, the real money is in digital downloads of software and eBooks. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to host a digital file online and charge for each download than to crank out and deliver new hardware.
For more details on the Acer eBook reader and a few details about an Acer tablet which may or may not ever see the light of day, hit up Bloomberg.
Post from: Liliputing
Acer working on Chrome OS notebooks, App Store, eBook reader
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