Global top-three PC vendor Acer restructured its businesses to create a new mobile unit, called Touch Business Group, which will sit alongside its core PC Global Operations division. Referred to as Touch BG, the new unit will include the company’s smartphone and tablet device activities. In recent months, Acer has announced a range of new mobile devices, including tablet devices powered by Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) or Windows 7 and several Android smartphones. Touch BG will be headed by Jim Wong, corporate president of Acer, and Simon Hwang, president of Acer’s Eten Information Systems business, who has also been appointed deputy president of Touch BG. According to Wong: “to focus on this market, we saw the need to allocate sufficient resources, and devise a new management structure different from the PC business specifically for this line of business.”

Acer is seeing tough competition in its core PC business, stating that it expects its shipments in this sector to fall by 10 percent from the first quarter of 2011 to the second. In March 2011, when discussing weakness in its PC business, it said that new tablet products would “boost revenue in Q2.” Last month, it parted company with Gianfranco Lanci, its president and CEO, noting that he “held different views from a majority of the board members, and could not reach a consensus following several months’ of dialogue.” At this time, JT Wang, chairman of Acer, said: “we are stepping into the new mobile device market, where we will invest cautiously and aim to become one of the leading players.”