Yahoo to team with Acer

The biggest PC maker in Taiwan and the top supplier of PC notebooks in Europe, Acer is planning to set Yahoo as the default search engine on all its PCs and to distribute a co- branded Web browser toolbar.

This deal, described as a strategic partnership by officials from both companies will have Acer laptop and desktop computers include a home page and browser toolbar from Yahoo, expected to initiate from October 1.

Yahoo is trying to amplify the use of its e-mail, news and instant messaging services through the pact with Acer. The PCs will encourage users to use Yahoo search, mail, news, and finance services as the Yahoo start page will automatically appear when an Acer customer opens a Web browser on a new laptop or desktop computer.

"Our goal is to give users choice," Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer, said. "We have always lived in a world where people had a choice and wanted to come to us," he said.

Major Internet companies are seeking to ensure featured grade on the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the Acer-Yahoo deal is the latest of many such partnerships.

"The lineup will make Acer's products more attractive to customers and will help our expansion in overseas markets," said Henry Wang, a spokesman at Acer.

Taipei based Acer is the world's fourth-largest computer maker and owns 5.4 percent of the market share. It was the fastest-growing PC maker in the United States, where it ranks seventh after pulling back from the world's biggest PC market in the mid-1990s.

"A higher profile will definitely help Acer grab more share in the U.S. and China markets, where branding weighs on customers' choices," said Daniel Chang, an analyst at Macquarie Securities in Taipei.