After test marketing some of its products over the last one year, Taiwanese component manufacturer AOpen (also a subsidiary of Acer) is now preparing itself for some real business in the country. The company has lined up a slew of products, which it would be launching over the next six months. It also is working on its channel strategy, which it believes would be firmed up within the next two months.

The products that AOpen plans to launch includes motherboards, combo drives, DVD-ROMs, graphic cards, mini PCs, media center PCs and BTO notebooks. "First of all, we would be introducing our mainboards to the Indian market as it is the fundamental building block for a PC. Then we would gradually supplement our product portfolio with our components," informs Richard Lin, Director (APac, Sales Business Div), AOpen Inc in an exclusive interview with DQ Channels India.
He further talks about putting a strong channel in place by the second half of 2004. "We would begin by tapping the South Indian market first. After that we would look at north," adds Richard.

The company has also invested towards creating a sound service infrastructure. It has put in place 26 RMA centers across the country and would also enable chip-level repairing to be carried out within the country. "By investing on services, we would ensure a turn-around time of not more than 48 hours for any location within the country," assures Richard. He also indicates that at AOpen's marketing spend would go up five times this year as compared to last year.

The company is also very bullish about its Mediacenter PC launch. Called XC Cube AV, this could well be the first Mediacenter to hit the Indian market.. AOpen would be conducting a series of roadshows across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai to promote these PCs among the home segment. It would also be debuting its range of mini-PCs at these 
roadshows.

"Looking ahead, maybe by next year or so you can expect us to introduce display-centric (monitors, LCD TV, etc) and storage-centric (storage servers, thumb drives, etc) products," reveals Richard while adding that Xserve would continue to market these products for the company.

GOLDIE

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