The long-term care industry and virtual reality (VR) applications for the entertainment industry are among the key sectors being targeted by Acer Inc (宏碁) as the PC brand continues its business transformation.
“The direction of corporate transformation has become clearer in that we are going to enter the long-term care and VR industries,” Acer chief executive Jason Chen (陳俊聖) told President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday in a briefing after the opening ceremony of the Computex Taipei at Taipei’s Nangang Exhibition Hall.
Acer has been investing in some new areas as the company is looking for long-term business opportunities rather than one-time hardware sales. In March, it acquired a 48.98 percent stake in US tablet maker grandPad Inc for US$11.04 million, aiming to provide solutions specifically designed for senior citizens.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Chen said the company in April also inked a strategic alliance with US-based Comfort Keepers, which is a leading provider of in-home care for senior citizens and adults who need help performing daily activities.
Together with Comfort Keepers and grandPad, Acer aims to expand its reach in the long-term care industry in the US, Chen said, adding that the company would invest more money in the long-term care sector.
In an effort to tap the VR entertainment industry, Acer is to form a joint venture with Stockholm-based game developer Starbreeze Studios and cooperate with movie company IMAX Corp to provide location-based entertainment, Chen said.
However, he declined to comment on the performance of the PC business, saying only that “it is challenging for worldwide PC companies, but our business has stabilized.”
Meanwhile, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) chairman Jonney Shih (施崇棠) yesterday demonstrated the company’s first domestic robot, Zenbo, to Tsai at the company’s booth at Computex Taipei.
The voice-controlled Zenbo is an affordable US$599 and is equipped with many functions that make it a “smart home manager,” Shih said.
Zenbo can sense if senior citizens need medical help and make emergency calls for them, Shih said.
During the demonstration, Tsai activated Zenbo and successfully asked it to play music for her.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
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