E-machines are perfect for the entry-level retail sector, says Tarsus

21 January 2009

Following on from its acquisition of Gateway in the second half of last year, Acer South Africa has announced the imminent arrival of the new breed of entry-level and cost-effective notebooks in South Africa, affectionately known as its e-Machine range.

The first unit to arrive in this new range, the eME520 is a 15.4-inch Celeron-based notebook available with Microsoft Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium.

The unit also boasts with anywhere between 120GB and 250GB of disk storage, built-in wireless networking, embedded graphics and a number of expansion ports.

The company believes the cost-effective, feature-rich nature of this new range is exactly what the local retail sector has been craving for the past two years.

"For some time now, it's been clear that emerging markets such as South Africa, especially at a retail level, require value-for-money solutions that allow customers who have only recently moved into an income bracket commensurate with the purchase of white goods to get online quickly and cost-effectively," says Othelo Vieira, Acer product manager at Tarsus Technologies.

"Solutions such as the eME520 are perfect for students and novice users who need access to a computer and the Internet," he says.

And although these notebooks don't feature all of the latest developments in the market, they make use of the more mature technologies where the economies of scale reached, strongly contributing towards extremely cost-effective end products, he explains.

"E-machines are the perfect solution for the sector they are aimed at," he adds.

"Since the entry-level retail sector is where the majority of the growth still needs to take place in the South African computing sector, Acer is right on the money with the release of the e-Machine range," Vieira opines.

Vieira says the e-Machine range is due to arrive in South Africa in the coming weeks and that between Acer and Tarsus, plans are on the cards to expand the suite to encompass a broader range of notebooks and a handful of desktops.

"Acer and Tarsus see great potential in this entry-level segment," he says, "and we're planning to be extremely aggressive in the way we approach this market.

"We're anticipating healthy sales and growth in this sector over the coming months," he concludes.

The Acer eME520 retails at a recommended price of R5 999, including VAT.

With more than 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world's foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.

Tarsus strives to meet the channel's needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.

The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large rollouts. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.

With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.