by Playfuls Staff |
15th September 2006
Do you remember the
Google-Dell deal? Now it is time for another Web giant to form an alliance with
a hardware company to distribute its products and service. The Web giant is
Yahoo and the personal computer seller is Acer. [more] They announced a
multi-year strategic partnership to distribute a co-branded toolbar and start
page and to set Yahoo! as the default search engine on all Acer PCs sold
globally. The agreement gives Yahoo! prime placement on one of the PC
industry's fastest-growing vendors: according to Gartner Dataquest, in Q2 2006
Acer was the number three notebook vendor worldwide, number one in EMEA
(Europe, Middle East, Africa), number three in Asia Pacific, and had the
largest year-over-year growth in the
U.S. The partnership will give
millions of Acer customers around the world easy access to trusted and vital
services, such as Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, and Yahoo! Finance,
from one of the Internet's most trafficked sites.
Under the
terms of the agreement, Acer will preload a co-branded Yahoo! and Acer toolbar
and start page on Acer PCs shipped worldwide. The co-branded start page will
automatically appear when an Acer customer opens a Web browser on a new laptop
or desktop computer and will offer: Yahoo! content, such as news; links to
Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Sports; the Yahoo! Personal
Assistant, as seen on Yahoo!'s new home page, for quick access to Yahoo! Mail,
Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Local information; direct links to specific Acer
customer services; and an Acer module for up-to-the-minute information on Acer
news and products. The start page will reflect the look and feel of the new
Yahoo! home page in order to provide Acer customers with the best and most
innovative portal experience. The co-branded Yahoo! and Acer toolbar will give
consumers immediate access to any of Yahoo!'s products and services from any
touch point on the Web. Additionally, with the upcoming launch of Microsoft's
Internet Explorer 7, Acer will also set Yahoo! as the default search engine for
IE7 on all of its computers.
Acer will begin shipment of its
PCs featuring the co-branded toolbar and co-branded start page on October 1,
2006 in: Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and South
America. Yahoo! and Acer will be jointly developing localized,
country-specific toolbars and start pages in Brazil, Canada (English and
French), France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Spain,
Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States (English and Spanish).
