Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said it would continue to work with Chinese partners to expand its presence in the market, a day after the PC vendor abruptly canceled a press conference in which it was expected to launch a new smartphone running on an operating system developed by Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴).
The incident cast doubts on Acer’s plan to rebuild its presence in the Chinese smartphone market. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s biggest smartphone market, accounting for 26.5 percent of global shipments this year, bolstered by demand for smartphones priced under US$100, market researcher International Data Corp said last month.
Acer did not elaborate on why it canceled the event, but Alibaba said Google Inc was behind the move.
The Chinese company said Acer was under pressure from Google to halt the press conference, the Chinese-language Economics Daily News reported yesterday, citing a statement from Alibaba.
Alibaba said Google had threatened to withdraw Acer’s Android license if the Taiwanese firm used Alibaba’s rival operating system on its phones, the report said.
Acer was scheduled to launch a new high-end smartphone, code-named the A800, but canceled the event about half an hour before it was scheduled to start because of “internal factors,” Acer’s China public relations company said.
The A800 was expected to be Acer’s first smartphone running Alibaba’s latest operating system, Aliyun OS 2.0, a system that is primarily built to run Web-based applications that are stored on remote servers, the report said.
The launch would have made Acer the third company to adopt the Aliyun operating system after Chinese firms Beijing Tianyu Telecommunications Equipment Co (天宇朗通) and Haier Group (海爾).
Acer was planning to unveil two smartphones powered by Aliyun, the report said.
Acer yesterday declined to comment on the report. In a statement sent to reporters yesterday, the firm apologized for the “abrupt cancelation of yesterday’s press conference with Alibaba in China.”
Acer said it would continue to work “with strategic partners in China to create better product and service offerings, and looks forward to sharing the results of our win-win developments in the near future.”
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
FACTORY SHIFT: While Taiwan produces most of the world’s AI servers, firms are under pressure to move manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) started building artificial intelligence (AI) servers in India’s south, the latest boon for the rapidly growing country’s push to become a high-tech powerhouse. The company yesterday said it has started making the large, powerful computers in Pondicherry, southeastern India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones. The Chinese company would also build out its facilities in the Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on AI. Lenovo’s plans mark another win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tries to attract more technology investment into the country. While India’s tense relationship with China has suffered setbacks
RSS