PC vendor Acer has underlined its Predator line of gaming machines as a core component of its 2015 strategy to cement its 4th place ranking, overall, in the EMEA region. The company's commercial silo is focused on an immediate strategy which includes the offering to 'Build Your Own Cloud' using tailor-made apps, directing its Chromebook offering into the retail space, and reinforcing contribution to the local smartphone and tablet market.

The company wants to build on its existing market presence, and on what it considers to be its strengths – including its track record, the breadth of available solutions, and offerings like 'Build Your Own Cloud' (to construct a personal cloud across all devices using apps that serve as small building blocks).

This will be developed for the consumer and business areas of the market.

At a company briefing in Johannesburg this week Acer Commercial Business Unit Head Paul Collins, newly appointed GM of Acer South Africa said the company has established a stronghold within the SMB space "just below corporate' and continues to dominate in contribution to this segment, as well as to traditional key areas of education and government.

Collins emphasised the focus of the 100% channel-focused business falls in line with the today's market requirement of access to data and not paying attention only to product/ devices themselves. "It is all about how you get to the data, it's not really about product, it is about access to that...," he added.

Acer Commercial is leveraging its partnerships with product distributors Mustek, Pinnacle and Rectron to capitalise on what they believe to be the main market drivers today, including: mobility, cloud computing, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and consumerisation.

"As users and drivers of IT technology seeing ourselves in a transition where we are moving away from the traditional PC market into an ICT market, where it's not about interacting just with a device, it's about interacting with your data and in different ways," Collins said.

He described the ICT space as one experiencing significant change and substitution, with vendors beginning to drive into the phone market, "while people are driving into the IT side from the smartphone side."

Collins also mentioned the company's broad client based product range, and specifically screen size, as a key differentiator in the market.