Acer’s Founder Stan Shih: Android Leaguers Likely to Outdo Apple

Taipei, Oct. 14, 2011 (CENS)--Stan Shih, the founder of Acer Inc., one of the world’s top five PC suppliers, stated in an interview with Taiwan’s Chinese-language United Daily News that consistently tapping synergies of Wintel (Windows plus Intel) and Google on innovation, Android leaguers are likely to outdo Apple Inc. in the near future.

Buoyed by PC and smartphone suppliers, Google’s Android has become one of the world’s most used mobile operating systems, regarded as the answer to Apple’s incursion into the global market for PCDs (portable communication devices).

Shih stressed that Intel’s alliance with Google is especially the good news to Android leaguers, as the two high-tech giants will jointly come up with better solutions to optimizing Android’s speed and performance. In the future, Shin opines, Android-powered, Atom processor-built PCDs will likely outsell Apple’s products to lead PC development.

Shih also commented that the emergence of Ultrabook PC may be a transient boom, which is likely to temporarily revive the PC industry in the short term, but won’t secure insiders a lifetime of growth. Thus, he said, “The PC industry needs to make more destructive innovations happen to draw consumers back.”

On the post-PC era, Shih indicated that the arrival of the post-PC era doesn’t mean that PC would become the past tense for the industry, but would continue to exist in diverse forms (like tablets and smartphones) in the future. Therefore, Shih furthered, contract manufacturers of parts and components, such as display panels and IC chipsets, will keep playing key part in the global supply chain of PCs, whose production capabilities and capacity will be increasingly needed by PCD customers. In other words, the PC industry’s influence will be enhanced in the future, despite the coming post-PC era, he concluded.

Finally, Shih also pointed out that development of Taiwan’s software industry will hinge on concerted efforts by the government and enterprises to create a sizeable domestic market, talents and a positive environment on the island, saying that success of the U.S.’s software industry is a living example to Taiwan.