Taiwan’s Acer, the world’s second-largest personal computer maker by shipments after HP, has announced a move into the apps and cloud media space. The vendor this week unveiled ‘alive’, which it claims is a “next-generation store where content providers can plug in and publish their content directly to Acer Group users, who will then find an extensive offer of both global and local content.” Free and paid content covering audio entertainment, video, e-books, games and apps will be available in the UK and Italy in December, before being rolled out on a wider scale from the first quarter of 2011 across all Acer’s consumer devices worldwide (netbooks, notebooks, smartphones and tablets). Acer has already struck deals with Adobe and Intel for support of Adobe AIR and Intel AppUp Center applications.

Acer’s offering is slightly different from most app stores as purchases are stored in the cloud and can be accessed from any browser. Rethink Wireless notes that “this multi-platform activity is also supported by an option called cloud-fi, a cloud-based media sharing service that distributes content among any clear.fi devices.” The move comes as the PC vendor makes a big push into the mobile space, also this week unveiling three new tablets.