Acer President Denies iPad Rival Plans

We could make an iPad rival, Acer reckon, we just aren't going to bother.  That's the message from company president Scott Lin, who suggests that Acer will continue to promote ultra-thin notebooks in 2010 rather than attempt to take on the new Apple tablet.  Lin told reporters that the creation of an iPad rival would present no technical hurdles to Acer, however it does not fit into the company's roadmap.

That's particularly interesting, since a week ago another Acer executive – Jim Wong, the company's president of IT products – told press that the company was looking to produce a tablet sometime this year.  Wong gave little detail regarding the touchscreen project, only suggesting that "We're going to work either in the Windows world or in Google's defined OS space."

Of course, that device could significantly differ from the consumer focus Apple are looking at with the iPad.  Lin pointed to Apple's existing iTunes and App Store ecosystem as potentially supporting a more closed product than other manufacturers could get away with.  Instead, any Acer tablet could more readily take on netbooks and traditional tablet PCs.