Acer reiterates its channel support

NR Sethuraman

Chennai

July 28, 2008

Following the turmoil caused by the Elcot offer, Acer has agreed to hold
talks with channel partners to offer a solution. State representatives of Acer
met with Acer Mall partners, who are also representatives of the 14 associations
in Tamil Nadu, along with S Karthikeyan, President, Confed-ITA to address the
issues of partners in the state.

Acer is said to have reiterated their stance that the Elcot scheme was only
for government employees and people in government bodies and not for students.
They have also told partners that the scheme couldn't be taken through the
channel for different reasons.

Last week, C Umashankar, MD, Elcot himself had clarified to The DQ Week that
there was some serious mistake in the tender quoted by Elcot due to which the
laptops couldn't be supplied to students.

In the meeting held in Coimbatore on July 21, Acer is said to have made its
stance clear that it's aim was not to affect the channel community but to help
the government to bring down the digital divide in the state.

“The representatives of Acer once again expressed their innocence that
their tie-up with Elcot was not determined to affect the channel community, and
ensured their strong commitment to channel partners,” Karthikeyan informed.
Acer is also said to have promised its partners during the meeting that it would
introduce special schemes for its committed partners (Acer Mall) to bail them
out from the sales crisis that they are facing in the market. “Acer
representatives promised us that they would bail out their committed channel
community by introducing special prices to facilitate their sales in the market,”
Karthikeyan said. He also expressed his satisfaction on the meeting and sounded
confidence that partners would bounce back from this crunch period.

When The DQ Week tried to contact Acer to know about the commitments given
during the meeting, there was no response from the vendor.