Back in 2007 when Acer bought Gateway, rumor was that Acer was shooting for the #2 position in PC sales. Since Dell had fallen off of their perch as #1, replaced by HP, Acer has been steadily climbing the PC sales ladder. With Gianfranco Lanci behind the Acer helm, the Taiwan based company is quickly gaining on Dell. According to a recent article over at the New York Times it states that:

Mr. Lanci may need to come to grips with his growing celebrity. After all, he has turned Acer, the personal computer seller based here, into a finely tuned organization that’s obliterating some of the computing industry’s longest-standing traditions and leading Taiwan’s charge up the technology food chain.

This year, Acer appears poised to overtake Dell as the world’s second-largest seller of personal computers, which would put a real dent into one of America’s favorite dorm-to-empire business stories. And if this comes to pass, Acer would trail only Hewlett-Packard; no computer company based outside the United States has ever climbed so high.

“That is a big achievement, and they have beaten the odds,” says Roger L. Kay, a PC industry analyst and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a consultancy. “Acer is a real comer.”

So what makes Acer so attractive? Price comes to mind. Acer has always been a low price contender and continues to do so today. But will Acer be able to catch up to Dell? Only time will tell.

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