A week after returning to profitability, Acer is making Canada a big part of its new focus on the SMB market, including hiring in that unit here and the relocation of an overseas call centre to Windsor, Ont.
The Windsor call centre will provide toll-free technical support andimmediate troubleshooting in both French and English for commercialcustomers who buy Acer’s servers, Veriton desktops, or TravelMatenotebooks “no matter how small the purchase of commercial products,”Acer spokesperson Kelly Odle said today.
Acer has also improved the on-site customer support options providedthrough its Authorized Service Providers program. Another overseas callcentre has been moved to Temple, Texas as part of the bigger SMB push.The boost in customer service options is designed to help Acer’scommercial users “resolve issues quickly and reliably to get ourcustomers back to work,” Terry Tomecek, general manager ofAcer Canada, said in the release.
In addition, Acer has expanded its commercial salesforce by 50 per centand made new hires in engineering and product management. (The companydid not specify how many jobs have been created in Canada so far as aresult of the SMB initiative.)
The new SMB strategy will be led from right here in Canada too: MichaelO’Beirne has been promoted to the position of senior director ofcommercial product management. He will oversee all commercial productmanagement for both Canada and the U.S. from Acer’s Mississauga, Ont.office. Before joining Acer, O’Beirne held various sales, marketing,and management positions at Electronic Data Systems, Novell and HP.
Acer posted a fourth quarter profit ofUS$2.4 million on Feb. 15 after reporting two quarterly losses in arow. The company was once the world’s third largest PC vendor but fellto fourth spot last year due to a global economic slump and stiffcompetition from tablets which took the shine off its netbook andnotebook sales.
Acer is the number two PC provider in Canada and holds the top spot inCanadian market share for LED and LCD displays, according to figuresfrom Partner Research Corp.