A history of Acer in six products, as chosen by Acer CEO Jason Chen

Last week I published my interview with Acer Chairman and CEO Jason Chen. What I didn’t reveal was that, before we met, I asked him to pick out five products that helped to define Acer’s 50 years in business.

As you will see, I end up listing six products here. That’s because the way Acer reinvigorated its gaming brand Predator came in the form two products. All will become clear.

Before we dive in, a quick word on Acer itself. While it’s now one of Taiwan’s most recognised brands, it started under the name Multitech on 1 August 1976. It had only a handful of employees, including its founder Stan Shih.

After five years of success, distributing components and providing consultancy to other technology companies, it created its first product…

1981 MicroProfessor-I

After initially focusing on product design and consultancy, Acer brought out its first branded product in 1981. “If we asked Stan Shih [for the most influential product], he would say the MicroProfessor-I,” said Chen. “It’s a microprocessor development kit and how he made his first fortune.”

The following year, Multitech produced a full PC in the MicroProfessor-II. I believe this was the first 8-bit home computer designed and built in Taiwan, only a couple of years after similar products in the UK and USA. This was a fully functioning computer capable of running software and games.

1986 Acer 1100

“We are very proud that we are the first company that came up with a 32-bit platform for the 32-bit processor – earlier than anybody else, than IBM, than Dell,” said Chen of the Acer 1100. “Today we still want to maintain that spirit, [to be] the first to market.”

As the picture makes clear, the Acer 1100 ran on powerful Intel 386 processors, released a year earlier. And when I say powerful, some even ran at 20MHz! While designed to run MS-DOS, it supported early versions of Windows as well.

I should also mention that it was initially called the Multitech 1100, as the company only rebranded to Acer in 1987.

2008 Aspire One 

“The third one was a product that took us to a new scale,” said Chen, “the Aspire One. At that time, we sold millions of [this] small computer that you probably experienced. That was very well accepted around the world.”

Despite being well established as a laptop maker in 2008, it’s interesting to see that Jason Chen chose this netbook – highly portable, cheap laptops – rather than its other models. Acer originally launched it as an answer to the Asus Eee PC, which had set the world alight with that original netbook.

The first Acer Aspire One netbooks featured tiny 8.9in displays and, like all netbooks, were powered by Intel’s low-powered Atom processors. Users could choose Linux if they wanted nippier speed, or stick with the more familiar Windows XP.

2017 Acer Predator 21X

Chen joined Acer from TSMC in 2014, making the Predator 21X his first pick from his time in charge. “In order to make the Predator gaming brand successful, we came out with an extraordinary product,” he said.

And it was, with a 21in curved screen and room for two GeForce GTX 1080 cards in SLI formation, complete with a sea of fans at the rear to keep everything cool. At 9kg it was a beast, and that doesn’t include the pair of 1.25kg power supplies. Yours for a cool $8,999.

2019 Acer Predator Thronos Air

After the success of the Predator 21X – in terms of publicity at least – Acer decided to up the ante with this “gaming cave”.

“Initially I said, very impressive, but who wants to buy that?” said Chen of the Predator Thronos Air. “It’s a huge device and it’s expensive, $30,000 per piece.”

That high price was the for the fully specced out model, which included a trio of screens to fully immerse gamers in the action. They played in a motorised gaming chair surrounded by a cage, in which gamers would recline as if they were shooting TIE fighters in Star Wars.

I’m told it was a lot of fun… and very popular in the Middle East.

2021 Acer Aspire Vero

Finally, Chen selected the Vero. “Number five is the environmentally friendly Vero product line that used recycled materials and has now [evolved] into a modularised notebook PC that is meant for serviceability and upgradability,” he said, referring to the Acer Vero 16. This was one of our picks of IFA 2016.

The Vero was a personal launch, he explained. “We led the way for the environmentally friendly device to call people’s attention to… sustainability.” A subject that’s close to Chen’s heart, although if you read my interview you’ll know that he does not describe himself as an environmentalist.

Acer still has work to do in terms of sustainability, in particular to make spare parts easier to buy for when its products go wrong. But there’s no doubt that Chen has led the way for Acer to become one of the most sustainably minded technology companies out there.

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