Acer has filed a lawsuit against its former chief executive officer Gianfranco Lanci for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement. Lanci left Acer last March after the company hit a rough patch and was recently named head of Lenovo’s operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. “We believe Mr. Lanci has clearly breached the terms of the non-compete agreement he entered into willingly . . . we believe we have a very robust case,” Acer said in a statement given to the Financial Times. The ...

Apple pulled ahead of HP in the fourth quarter to become the largest player in the client PC market, a new report suggested Monday. The Cupertino-based company shipped more than 15 million iPads and 5 million Mac computers last quarter, and those figures represented 17% of all PCs shipped around the world during the fourth quarter. The report, which comes from market research firm Canalys, said PC shipments grew 16% annually to reach 120 million during the quarter, and the firm’s categorization of ̶...

Acer, Asus and Lenovo will reportedly begin selling ultrabooks equipped with Intel’s fast and versatile Thunderbolt I/O port, which combines DisplayPort and PCI Express, during the second quarter of 2012. DigiTimes said mostly high-end computers will adopt Thunderbolt this year since it now costs more than $20 to add Thunderbolt connectivity to a computer. Apple was one of the first companies to adopt Thunderbolt and it currently equips a number of its computers and displays with the technology. A re...

Acer chairman JT Wang on Thursday reaffirmed the company’s dedication to the new “ultrabook” market, further distancing his company from the low-margin netbooks that have dominated its PC lineup in the past. Following the success of Acer’s first-generation ultrabook — the Aspire S3 reportedly shipped between 250,000 and 300,000 units during its first quarter of availability — Acer plans to launch new ultrabook models in both the second and third quarters this year. According to Dig...

Acer recently announced the company’s intent to enter into the cloud game with the introduction of AcerCloud. The service will be available for Android devices and bundled with Acer brand computers starting in the second quarter of 2012 with worldwide availability in the fourth quarter. With AcerCloud’s PicStream, users can take a picture with their smartphone and have it automatically backed up to their computer to share with other connected devices. Additionally, AcerCloud Docs, a cloud-ba...

Acer has officially announced the newest addition to the company’s Iconia Tab lineup, the A200. The 10.1-inch device runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb with an Ice Cream Sandwich update slated for mid-February. The A200 features NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor with a 1280 x 800-pixel display and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Additionally, the device features a microSD slot, 1GB RAM, a full sized USB 2.0 port and eight hours of battery life. Perhaps the most attractive feature is the price tag — the 8GB ...

Earlier this month, Acer announced its Iconia Tab A200 tablet, a 10.1-inch device running Ice Cream Sandwich and NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor clocked at 1GHz. The slate is supposed to land sometime in January and should make its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show. It is also suggested that Acer will be releasing a robust Tegra 3-powered device dubbed the Iconia Tab A700, as reported by NoMobile. The Russian site says the tablet features a 10.1-inch display with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. Additionally, ...

Acer will continue to launch new tablets in 2012 despite slow sales of the company’s current tablet models. Commenting on rumors that Acer might slow its tablet efforts in 2012 or even exit the emerging market completely, company founder Stan Shih stated that Acer would not be giving up on tablets just yet. He added that the company will continue to build smartphones as well, and that there are currently no plans to make personnel cuts in its tablet or smartphone divisions as had been previously rumor...

Following the early successes of its of 11-inch and 13-inch ultrabooks, Acer has reportedly decided to build a brand new 15-inch ultrabook that may dramatically undercut the price of Apple’s rumored 15-inch MacBook Air. DigiTimes said Wednesday that Acer has already contracted Pegratron to build the new computer, and that the device could be priced as low as $699 — $300 cheaper than the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air. The latest rumors suggest that Apple could be prepared to deliver its 15-inch MacBo...

Acer will cut its product line by 66% in 2012 and focus on simplifying its portfolio, company chairman JT Wang recently said according to reports. Wang expects the narrowed focus to be fine-tuned over the next two to three years, DigiTimes reports, but the sharper vision will have an immediate impact on sales — Acer thinks revenue will climb 10% in 2012 as Acer attacks the ultrabook market while shifting away from low-margin netbooks. The Acer boss also sees another upside to the advent of ultrabooks: the r...

Are PC makers starting to give up on tablets? Manufacturers Asus and Acer are shifting focus to Intel-powered ultrabooks instead of tablets to improve gross margins, DigiTimes said on Tuesday. The site’s report suggests that the notebook market may soon begin to rebound after declining in 2011. Both firms are seemingly drawn to the wider margins achieved on sales of notebook computers, and are also gravitating away from developing low-cost netbooks. Asus and Acer aren’t alone; other reports have...

Last year more than 100 tablets were unveiled during the Consumer Electronics Show and this year it appears the focus could shift to Intel-powered ultrabooks. Demand for ultrabooks — devices defined as powerful thin and light notebooks with long-lasting battery life — is expected to begin to heat up following the holidays and January’s Consumer Electronics Show. More than 50 new ultrabook models will be displayed during CES and the category is expected to be one of the hottest consumer electronic se...

A number of recent entrants in the tablet space may make quick exits as their tablet offerings go largely unnoticed in a market seen to be dominated by the likes of Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble moving forward. A new report from DigiTimes on Thursday cites unnamed sources from within component suppliers in stating PC vendors such as HP, Acer, Asustek and Dell may abandon the tablet market next year. These companies have gained very little traction in the tablet space according to the report, as they l...

Weak sales of the Acer S3 and Asus Zenbook series Ultrabooks have forced both Acer and Asus to scale back orders by 40%, DigiTimes reported on Thursday. The two companies are said to have slashed orders from between 250,000 and 300,000 units to between 150,000 and 180,000 units. The high-end Ultrabooks, which are priced around $1,000, are not faring well in a PC market that has seen decreased global demand. Sources said to be familiar with Acer’s shipment plans said the company is still confident in Ul...