Acer Octon in Talks With Top Three Carriers in the U.S.

 

You might be wondering just who or what Acer Octon is, but it’s essentially the telecommunications arm of Acer, the company known for PCs, laptops – including Chromebooks – and of course Android smartphones and tablets. Acer has been steadily producing and releasing Android devices over the years. While they’re often more budget-minded affairs, Acer produce some quality handsets that sell fairly well throughout parts of Europe as well as Asia. However, they’re not readily available in the U.S. and it looks like that could change later this year, if talks between Acer Octon and the top three carriers in the U.S. are any indication.

According to DigiTimes, Acer Octon, itself a joint venture with customer service provider Octon and Acer, is in talks with the top three U.S. carriers. Acer Octon is focused on delivering enterprise level IT services to users, and at the heart of that are devices from Acer, including smartphones and tablets. As such, this might not be your average entry into a new market, but more of a foot in the door. Acer Octon is more focused on delivering business software solutions, however much of this relies on cloud solutions, and I’m sure the U.S. networks will be interesting in offering their business customers further solutions. Smartphones like the Acer Liquid Jade Z are respectable, affordable devices that would work well as second devices for employees for business use.

While talks with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile might not lead to a direct partnership offering Acer smartphones and tablets in the U.S. it’s an encouraging start, and could be the start of something bigger. With Samsung and Apple pretty much dominating the North American market, having Acer join the ranks would be welcome competition and if Acer Octon can provide some serious business solutions, then it could give Samsung’s KNOX suite something to worry about. Enterprise solutions matter when it comes to mobile and considering BlackBerry are pretty much out of the running, it’s a decent time for someone like Acer Octon to get their foot in the door.