Acer joins WiMAX Open Patent Alliance

USA: Acer becomes the first global PC OEM board member of the WiMAX Open Patent Alliance (OPA) -- a group dedicated to offering intellectual property rights (IPR) solutions that support the development and widespread adoption of WiMAX.

As the first global PC OEM board member, Acer will help the proliferation of WiMAX technology, devices and applications around the world.

The OPA was formed in June 2008 by members of the WiMAX ecosystem. Acer joins current OPA members Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei Technologies, Intel, and Samsung Electronics to foster an ecosystem focused on broader choice and competitive equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally.

"We are proud to welcome Acer to the OPA. Adding their voice further strengthens the support for an innovative and open WiMAX ecosystem," said OPA President Yung Hahn. "Taking a collaborative approach to IPR issues, the OPA can continue to foster greater WiMAX innovation, collaboration and competition. The OPA is excited to expand the reach of the 4G WiMAX ecosystem to include non-traditional companies like Acer -- a leading innovator on the cusp of the computing/cellular convergence revolution."

Acer is ranked as the worlds No. 3 vendor for total PCs and No. 2 for notebooks, with the fastest growth among the top-five players. Acer currently offers several embedded-WiMAX notebooks and netbooks from the Acer Aspire and Acer Travelmate lines around the world.

"Acer has focused on delivering state-of-the-art, innovative PCs to consumers since 1976," said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of ITGO, Acer. "Consumers today want longer battery life, thin and light, innovative form factors with great processing and communications technology at affordable price. As the first global PC OEM to join the Open Patent Alliance, we hope to lead the charge in bringing several devices that harness the power of WiMAX wireless broadband technology to the hands of consumers worldwide."

The Acer announcement is significant since it reflects the first major PC OEM to take an active leadership role and support of the development of WiMAX technology in its products. In the past few years, Acer has been seemingly unstoppable as it continues to take market share and quickly closes in on global No. 2 vendor Dell, which last week announced the support for WiMAX in 2 of its upcoming notebooks. To survive, other PC OEMS must continue to innovate with technologies such as WiMAX and enter into new markets and product categories.

Source: WiMAX.com; Author: Carl Townsend