Acer is betting users will want to buy smaller desktop PCs this year and next, a boon for a company already specializing in laptops. The company also said it plans to launch a smart phone by the end of this year or early next.The company this month began selling small, 3-liter desktop PCs in Europe and parts of Asia for prices ranging from US$299 to $499, depending on their configuration. They have systems based on microprocessors from both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.And executives at the company believe they have a great opportunity in the segment since the design of a small desktop is similar to a small laptop PC.“It’s a great opportunity to find we can run the desktop business like our notebook business,” said J.T. Wang, chairman and chief executive officer of Acer, at an investor conference in Taipei. One small PC on display at the meeting, the AcerPower 1000, was equipped with an AMD Sempron 3200+, 512MB of double data rate, second-generation dynamic RAM, a DVD player and an 80GB hard drive. The company also had an Intel-based small PC on display, dubbed the Veriton, but did not disclose details of the model.The small PCs will be tailored to different users in different markets. A premium small Acer PC could come with an Nvidia graphics card, a hard drive up to 400GB, and other premium parts, the company said. The company expects the small desktops, along with other products such as liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs and smart phones, to drive growth for the company.The smart phone will be launched within the next few months, but executives were sketchy on details, saying only that it will be like a PDA that will handle e-mail and Internet browsing, with phone functions. “It’s much more smart than phone,” said Gianfranco Lanci, president of Acer. Acer has no plans to enter the mobile phone market, he said.-Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service (Taipei Bureau)Related Links: Acer: No Need for Recall of Sony-Made Batteries Acer, Sony in Talks Over Battery Recall At 30th Anniversary, Acer Vows to Be No. 3 in ’07Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost The steep cost of a poor data management strategy Without a data management strategy, organizations stall digital progress, often putting their business trajectory at risk. Here’s how to move forward. By Jay Limbasiya, Global AI, Analytics, & Data Management Business Development, Unstructured Data Solutions, Dell Technologies Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Management feature How Capital One delivers data governance at scale With hundreds of petabytes of data in operation, the bank has adopted a hybrid model and a ‘sloped governance’ framework to ensure its lines of business get the data they need in real-time. By Thor Olavsrud Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Governance Data Management feature Assessing the business risk of AI bias The lengths to which AI can be biased are still being understood. The potential damage is, therefore, a big priority as companies increasingly use various AI tools for decision-making. By Karin Lindstrom Jun 09, 2023 4 mins CIO Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership brandpost Rebalancing through Recalibration: CIOs Operationalizing Pandemic-era Innovation By Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies Jun 08, 2023 6 mins CIO Digital Transformation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe