Taipei Times (TT): Acer Inc (宏碁) on Thursday opened a BYOC experience center in Taoyuan County and said that the company’s cloud business started turning a profit last year. What makes Acer’s BYOC data storage platform different from those already established by Google Inc, Dropbox Inc or Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) years ago? How do you identify Acer’s competitiveness in this new market?
Ben Wan (萬以寧): What distinguishes us is our mindset toward BYOC platforms, which is different to those of Dropbox or other rivals.
I think we are providing customers with services that can help them meet their needs in the digital era. In particular, we targeted a segment of customers that we think have strong demand for self-built or private clouds, while our competitors chose to build public clouds. There is no conflict between these two and we believe that this is new territory for Acer.
The BYOC center is a solution that helps everyone upload hundreds of gigabytes of data to our data center and then manage all the files from a PC or mobile device.
The platform is like a personal “cloud valley” that people build on their own. However, what sets our BYOC center apart from other data storage services provided by companies like Dropbox is that it safeguards users’ privacy and security. We believe people will become increasingly aware about their privacy and security as they become ever more reliant on the Internet, so we decided to prioritize these concerns and address them with the Taoyuan project.
Furthermore, our services are free and accessible by everyone, including non-Acer customers. Users of Acer’s data storage software or apps can store a limitless amount of audio, video or other files in our data center that they can then access or edit across various operating systems — It is very convenient.
TT: Does this mean that Acer is not considering building a public cloud for government agencies or academic institutions?
Wan: That is right. We have no plans to replicate what has already been established in this market. Even if the government or schools contact us seeking a data storage solution, our end users, be they civil servants or students, would not be able to see that the software they would use is powered by Acer’s BYOC platform, because they would wind up building their clouds by themselves, rather than sharing documents with others.
TT: If Acer’s BYOC software and apps are for free, how is the company going to profit from the service?
Wan: Although anyone can download the software for free, customers with an Acer PC, smartphone or tablet can use the device’s built-in software to better manage their data on the BYOC platform.
Of course we do plan to devise a strategy for generating revenue. At this early stage, we have only created a couple hundred clouds, but after we expand our customer base, we will come up with a specific strategy for growing sales via the platform.
Think about this: How did Facebook Inc make money during its first years of operation?
Our primary focus right now is creating an optimal user experience. We have seen the momentum building and we believe that market demand for self-built clouds will pick up soon.
TT: How many data centers worldwide is Acer running now that allow users of its devices to store and manage their data online from anywhere in the globe?
Wan: We operate quite a lot of data centers in every country we do business in. As client demand for data storage space increases due to the launch of the BYOC center, we are accelerating the expansion of Acer server numbers worldwide.
We are not considering building any new data centers just for our new cloud business at the moment. Instead, we are considering adopting the more cost-effective strategy of leasing data centers or infrastructure to cope with rising customer demand.
TT: Has Acer set a sales goal for its cloud business? How has the company been doing integrating its hardware, software and services businesses?
Wan: Ever since we outlined the company’s long-term goal to become “a hardware plus software and services player” in December last year, we have been hearing all sorts of positive feedback from our industry partners as well as customers.
We feel we are on the right track to staging a turnaround.
However, as for setting a specific sales goal for our cloud business, I would say that ti is difficult to draw a clear line between sales generated by PCs and those from software or services, because they are all bound together.
What is certain is that Acer’s cloud business started yielding profits last year after more than 10 years of development, although the contribution to overall profit remains small compared with that generated by hardware sales.
As long as Acer continues to forge ahead with its restructuring effort, the company’s financial performance will continue to improve.
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