Tag Archive for Acer

RB | December 7, 2010
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More WLAN Legal Wrangling

The wireless patent wars wage on. Ericsson, (NASDAQ : ERIC) the Swedish telecommunications giant has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against a number of companies for alleged patents infringement of its IEEE 802.11 wireless products reports CENS.com. CENS.com says the businesses named  in the Ericsson’s lawsuit include:

The CENS.com article says the lawsuit involves all WLAN (wireless local area network) devices either incorporating chipsets supplied by:

or OEM products made by:

Tech Connect reports that Ericsson claims, the companies named are offering products that violate one or more of the following WLAN patents (number/title):

  • 6,466,568 – ‘Multi-rate radiocommunication systems and terminals’
  • 5,771,468 – ‘Multi-purpose base station’
  • 6,519,223 – ‘System and method for implementing a semi reliable retransmission protocol’
  • 6,330,435 – ‘Data packet discard notification’
  • 6,772,215 – ‘Method for minimizing feedback responses in ARQ protocols’
  • 6,424,625 – ‘Method and apparatus for discarding packets in a data network having automatic repeat request’
  • 6,173,352 – ‘Mobile computer mounted apparatus for controlling enablement and indicating operational status of a wireless communication’
  • 5,987,019 – ‘Multi-rate radiocommunication systems and terminals’
  • 5,790,516 – ‘Pulse shaping for data transmission in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed system’

Ericsson requested the infringing companies to compensate its losses and asked the court to ban the sales of the infringing products. D-Link told CENS.com they cannot give any comment, because the company had not received any file from the court. But it will not affect the sales of its products.  Acer, told CENS.com that its legal department had received the related notice and has started judicial procedures.

rb-

I have covered other WLAN patent suits here and here. While I’m no patent lawyer, what this says to me is that the WLAN market is starting to level-off and firms are looking for “other” ways to make some money without producing products. A business tacit fresh from the 1980′s.

I also noticed that this suit between a European firms (Ericsson) and Asian firms (Acer, Netgear and D-Link) was brought in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. This seems to be a favorite place for firms to sue each other, I wonder if  anyone has ever investigated why this court is so popular for alleged patent-troll cases.

One of the things that we instituted a while ago, in our RFP’s and contract’s is a clause that requires the VAR and the manufacturer to hold the end-user harmless in regards to patent suits the VAR or manufacturer may get entangled in.

Category: Legal, wi-fi | Tags: , , ,
RB | October 9, 2010
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Dell Number 2 again

I wrote about Dell losing its #2 role in the PC market but now  iSuppli reports that Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) has regained its customary rank in the global PC market behind HP. After nine-months in third place, the Texas-based OEM retook the number 2 position from Taiwan based Acer (LSE: ACID) in the second quarter of 2010.  The change is primarily due to decreased Acer sales and not improved sales for Dell.

In the second quarter shipped Dell shipped 10.5 million units worldwide, down a negligible 1.2 percent from 10.7 million units in the first quarter. This gave Dell a 12.8 percent share of global shipments, down from 13.1 percent in the first quarter according to iSuppli.

However iSuppli says Acer experienced a 6.2 percent shipment decline in the second quarter, with its shipments falling to 10.2 million units, down from 10.9 million in the first quarter. As a result, Acer’s share declined to 12.4 percent, down from 13.3 percent in the first quarter. Acer’s decline was notable given the global PC market’s 1.1 sequential rise in the second quarter, with shipments amounting to 82.5 million units, up from 81.6 million in the first quarter.

“With its product line heavily focused on mobile PCs, Acer’s sequential decline in notebook shipments impacted its position at the total PC level more than its competitors, which were able to draw on the upswing in desktop shipments to bolster their total shipments,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms research for iSuppli.

Dell’s share of the global PC market had been steadily declining since the second quarter of 2008, when the company accounted for 16 percent of worldwide shipments and held a 6.5 percentage point lead over Acer. However by the third quarter of 2009, Dell’s share had dwindled to 12.9 percent, allowing Acer to slip past and take the world’s No. 2 position.

“The second-quarter results show the market-share battle between Dell and Acer is not over and that it will continue to rage,” Wilkins said.

The second quarter marked HP’s 16th consecutive quarter as the No. 1 worldwide PC brand, with a market share of 18.1 percent.

Top 5 PC OEM Ranking Q2 2010

Q2 2010 RankOEMQ2 2010 ShipmentsQ2 2010 ShareQ1 2010 ShipmentsQ1 2010 Share
1Hewlett-Packard14,99518.1%15,96519.6%
2Dell10,54112.8%10,66813.1%
3Acer10,19112.4%10,87013.2%
4Lenovo8,32710.1%7,0208.6%
5Toshiba4,4565.4%4,5755.6%
Others34,02041.2%32,49939.8%
TOTAL82,490100%81,596100%
iSuppli (Ranking by Unit Shipments in Thousands)
Category: Hardware, PC | Tags: ,
RB | August 25, 2010
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Acer Beats Dell

I recently wrote about the troubles at Dell. Here is more proof of the downturn at Dell.  BusinessInsider is reporting that Acer (LSE: ACID), the Taiwanese computer maker has posted another solid quarter of global PC sales, according to new data from Gartner.

The Asian and emerging markets drove Acer’s growth. It has also successfully ridden the explosion in netbook demand. The netbook market is drying up now, though thanks to Apple’s iPad. This could give Dell an opening, if it can execute well (a big if lately) and Taiwan based Acer has problems cracking the mainland China market.

Category: Hardware, PC | Tags: , , ,
 

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