Acer South Africa has thrown its full weight behind the Cancer Association of South Africa’s (CANSA’s) Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA (C2C4C) initiative as a sponsor, in line with its commitment to acting as a caring corporate citizen.

The company will be providing a range of technology solutions to be used during the initiative as well as sponsorship for the project.

C2C4C sees five adventurers, including sporting stars, travel alongside 2800km of southern African coastline on jetskis to raise awareness about cancer as well as raise funds for CANSA to use in its fight against cancer.

The pilots include Barry Lewin (SA Surfski Paddler), Jason Ribbink (SA surfer and big wave rider), Lance Klusener (SA Cricketer), Mark Addison (Marine conservationist) and Russel Symcox (former Dolphins cricketer and Expedition Leader).

The jetski crew will be accompanied by four support vehicles manned by support crew members, medical and safety personnel, a television and media production crew, media liaisons and logistics co-ordinators.

Along the way, the crew will stop at Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town to promote healthy lifestyles and early cancer  detection. Their journey will begin in Ponto De Oura, Mozambique on April 20 and end at the Orange River on the West Coast border of Namibia.

Acer will be supporting this worthy initiative by supplying 14 notebooks to C2C4C expedition  to be used for a range of purposes. The notebooks Acer has donated include three Extensa 5635 professional notebooks, three environmentally friendly Timeline 8571 notebooks and eight TravelMate 6493 business notebooks.

Some will be used by CANSA administrative and support staff, while others will be used by the jetski crew to provide Web updates on their journey. Three machines will be auctioned  at a function to raise public awareness about cancer.

Says Graham Braum, Acer’s country manager and regional manager responsible for the Africa and Levant region: “The work that CANSA does in cancer research, cancer awareness programmes and prevention education support for cancer sufferers, and care services for cancer survivors is invaluable. In line with our commitment to giving something back to South Africa, we are proud to support CANSA and its fight against cancer in South Africa.”

Expedition Leader Russel Symcox commented, “It is an honor and a privilege to have Acer on board as our IT partner and major sponsor for our expedition. We are so grateful for their support and the sponsored Acer notebooks have proved to be invaluable to our team. They are being used by us several times a day to check weather forecasts, update our blog and website, communicate with our loved ones and also send out media statements.”

*For more information, see www.coast2coast4cansa.co.za or if you’d like to donate to Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA, you can use the following banking details:

Cancer Association of South Africa

Nedbank

Acc no: 1924 238 381

Branch: 192- 405 (Eastgate)

Remember to always use C2C4C as reference

Graham Braum, former country manager at Acer South Africa, has been promoted to regional manager responsible for the entire Africa and Levant (Jordan and Lebanon) region.

In his new role, Braum will be responsible for overseeing Acer’s growth across some 27 countries. The organisation expects to name a country sales manager for South Africa in the coming months to take on some of Braum’s current responsibilities at the local subsidiary.

Says Braum: “I’m looking forward to the challenge of growing Acer’s business across this region, which holds so much potential for us. Our presence in many of these countries is still relatively new, so we have plenty of scope to expand. And with affordable solutions such as our netbooks, we have the perfect set of offerings for emerging markets eager to join the Internet revolution.”

Braum joined Acer Africa in 1997 as the company’s first Corporate Account Manager, and subsequently developed his career with the group in a range of roles, ranging from technical and sales, through business development to general management. His career at Acer has taken him to some 25 countries throughout Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

Business Connexion Namibia was awarded the Acer reseller of the year at a glamorous ceremony in Athens, Greece.

Ferdi Graupe, Managing Director at Business Connexion Namibia says: “We are extremely proud to receive this prestigious award as it recognises our commitment and loyalty towards the Acer brand.  In 2010, we as Business Connexion Namibia are entering the 20^th year of Acer product distribution in Namibia and the quality, excellent supply chain and support structures offer our clients in Namibia excellent value of ownership. I can certainly say that there is much to admire and take note in Acer’s quick march up the global scale of computer manufacturers”

Taiwan-based Acer has been one of the shining stars on the personal computer scene for some years now and they’ve just recently taken over the number two spot in overall computer sales worldwide from competitors Dell. That is all computers including desktops, notebooks, and netbooks. According to Graham Braum, Country Manager Africa and Levant, Acer is “very close” to taking over the number one spot from HP and Acer aims to take the throne in 2011 in terms of the mobile PC segment.

“Acer’s notebooks are doing even better in our region – Middle East and Africa – where they are ranked number one,” he announced.

Three years ago Acer embarked on their multi-brand strategy, taking on board big brands, including Packard Bell (acquired in 2008), Gateway (acquired in 2007), and eMachines (also acquired in 2007, through the acquisition of Gateway). Increasing the product range has enabled Acer to reach a broad spectrum of customers and ensures they cater to all PC, notebook and netbook requirements, strengthening their market share.

Braum explains that the driving force behind Acer is its will to empower through technology, and bring the latest technologies available to their customers in all forms.

“We’re focused on what the customers want. So whatever technology is available we partner that with the right product. We ask our customers what they are looking for,” he says.

It’s clear from Acer and other companies that what customers are increasingly demanding is mobility. Braum said that approximately 220 million notebooks are sold worldwide out of the 400 million total PCs sold.

In terms of mobile phones, Braum explained that in the region of 1.2 billion units were sold worldwide with 270 million of those being smartphones. “We can estimate that there is a combined market of about 500 million units of “internet centric products”. Netbooks contribute about 15% of the total notebook market, and this is expected to increase to around 25% in 2012, where is will stabilise.” He added.

“Windows 7, launched by Microsoft, will be driving consumer demand for the foreseeable future,” said Braum. “The business segment will follow suit being more careful in their investments, it will take them a while longer to fully embrace Windows 7. According to Braum, whatever problems or “deficiencies” that were present in Windows Vista are not present in Windows 7. It will bring a “better customer experience,” he said.

An exciting new application being offered by Windows 7 is touch capability, which is built-in to the Operating System (OS). This is something that Acer will take full advantage of in both desktop and notebook computers. “Windows 7”, he continued, “also brings better performance and new functionality to the mobile computing segment, which in turn offers exciting opportunities for Acer.”

Acer South Africa has appointed Ingram Micro South Africa as its third distribution partner for the country giving the company access to Acer’s range of desktop and notebook products.       

Ingram Micro South Africa, a  joint venture between South Africa’s largest broad-based technology distributor, MB Technologies and the world’s largest IT distributor, Ingram Micro  will differentiate itself by focusing on growing Acer’s presence in selected niche markets.

Graham Braum, country manager of Acer South Africa says: “This partnership with Ingram Micro South Africa will allow us to cover new key segments of the market by tapping into Ingram’s growing base of resellers and their customers”.

He continues “we are particularly excited by the focus Acer will receive from Ingram Micro South Africa as the only top-tier international hardware brand in its product portfolio. Ingram Micro is one of Acer’s biggest distribution partner’s in EMEA and it makes sense to bring that highly successful relationship to South Africa.”

Ingram Mcro South Africa entered the market as a focused components distributor servicing South Africa’s system builder, upgrade and ‘white-box’ channels. However, these dealers have reported growing demand from their customers for access to complete systems from a tier one PC brand, especially in the SMEE market.

“Although we will retain our focus on this growing and vital part of the South African technology reseller channel, we are answering their need for a complementary range of products from an international PC brand,” says Hansie Fourie, CEO of Ingram Micro.

“It made sense for us to look towards Acer South Africa as a partner because of the significant and long standing relationship that exists between our international parent companies.”

Ingram Micro South Africa does not plan to take on any additional international PC brands and will focus only on the Acer products in its completed systems product portfolio. In the future, Ingram Micro South Africa may look to offer its resellers a choice of Acer server and storage products, in addition to the desktop, LCD, projector and notebook ranges it will supply with immediate effect.

Tarsus, a MB Technologies subsidiary, will continue to serve as a broad-based distributor for Acer while Ingram Micro South Africa will keep its focus on selected vertical markets in its existing dealer base.

“MB Technologies is delighted to broaden its important and strategic relationship with Acer South Africa,” says Glenn Fullerton, CEO of the MB Technologies Group. “This new agreement between Ingram Micro South Africa and Acer allows the joint venture to enhance its offering by adding an international tier one highly respected completed product range to its vertical market and further strengthens the MB Technologies Group’s relationship with Acer”.