Acer Phl partners with NBA

MANILA, Philippines - To be sure, quite a few were shocked by the recent results of the National Basketball Association (NBA) finals clash  not because the two-time defending champions Miami Heat flubbed their chance at a three-peat, but that LeBron James and his cohorts were so decisively upended by a supposedly aging San Antonio Spurs squad in only five games.

Even as the curtains closed on a stellar 2013-2014 season of the world’s premier basketball league, the interest never truly wanes, particularly in hoops-crazy Philippines.

“The NBA has been a household name for many, many years now,” said Acer Philippines general manager Manuel Wong, and continued how instrumental the league is in “breaking geographic, economic, and language barriers — making it a truly global brand.”

Speaking recently at the NBA Café in SM Aura, Taguig City, Wong excitedly announced the partnership between the information and communication technology firm’s Philippine office and the NBA.

The leading PC and projector brand in the country by volume and revenues for more than six years has now acquired the right to use the basketball league’s logo for marketing and promotional purposes. That only means good news for Acer devotees.

For his part, NBA senior director of development and marketing partnerships and country manager Carlos Singson lauded the Acer tie-up. “The partnership with Acer in the Philippines makes perfect sense,” he said.

“The NBA is a global basketball brand, and Acer is a global IT brand. We share a lot of the same values. We are both very passionate about our customers and fans. We strive to put up quality products and services, and we have the strong belief that technology will make the world better. For us in the NBA, it’s through digital media, NBA.com, Facebook. We are where our fans are. Acer also believes in our global mission to grow and celebrate the brand of basketball in the Philippines and to help our fans get closer to the game,” Singson added.

Singson later revealed that Toronto Raptors scoring leader DeMar DeRozan will be making a visit to Manila in July, and then gifted Wong with a basketball autographed by Utah Jazz standout Gordon Hayward, who was recently in the country for the formal opening of the world’s first NBA Café.

A couple of weeks ago at Computex 2014 in Taipei, Acer unveiled a number of new products — notably its very first wearable — all with the ability to capitalize on a new ecosystem devised by Acer founder and former chairman Stan Shih.

Dubbed “BYOC” or “Build Your Own Cloud,” the new service goes beyond traditional public and private cloud offerings that offer only storage and infrastructure.

“Our approach is to involve the PC in your cloud because it is already installed. It has computing power and storage space. That’s the fundamental concept of this different approach,” said Shih, who received select Philippine media at the Acer headquarters in Taiwan.