Rumors can be funny things sometimes. There always seems to be a little bit of truth in them, but as a whole they can never be fully trusted. For instance back in September we had a merger rumor swirling between Asus and Acer, two Taiwanese technology companies that have both been struggling to get their foot in the Android device market in any meaningful way so far. Now we’ve seen that rumor die away and up comes another one, saying that Acer is looking to merge with HTC, the maker behind many famous and big-name Android phones like last year’s HTC One. While this would make a fair bit of sense logistically, as both Acer and HTC are also Taiwanese companies, this merger is likely not happening either. Even the Chairman of Acer himself, Stan Shih, discussed rumors about this fabled merger and denied them fully, saying that Acer has no plans or intentions of merging with any other company right now.
Mr. Shih then went on to talk about Acer’s upcoming Build Your Own Cloud storage solution, which marks the company’s first foray into the software and services industry. BYOC will be shipping with all new Acer computers and mobile devices, and will help bridge the data storage gap between mobile and desktop. This new strategy is set to be unveiled by Acer’s new CEO, Jason Chen, next week, as Mr. Chen has been touring Acer’s departments, learning about Acer’s current roles and devising new roles for the company’s future. Acer has recently announced some new Chromebooks as well as budget tablets and phones, which they have previously specialized in. Meanwhile in Taiwan HTC has been working on its new flagship and successor to the HTC One, which is expected to carry on the premium build quality its predecessor had, as well as some not new specs and features. While it would make sense for these two companies to merge given that they are both located in Taiwan and that they both specialize in different segments of the Android product market, we’re not seeing any reason to believe these rumors just quite yet, and Acer’s CEO only helps squash that idea as well.