Acer’s new MPC-compatible merges computer functions with consumer devices

We’ve all been waiting to see who’d do it first, and now we know: Acer America — the company that Dataquest has ranked first in customer satisfaction — has packed into a PC footprint a gazillion computing and consumer functions, including MPC compatibility, for significantly less than $3,000.

Based on the Intel ‘386SX chip, the Acer Personal Activity Center (PAC) includes Microsoft Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions preloaded, a digital answering machine, built-in speaker phone with condenser microphone, facsimile, data modem, CD-ROM drive, AM/FM radio receiver, 8-channel stereo mixer and an alarm clock, as well as office applications. (Value-added resellers will no doubt offer kitchen plumbing as an option.) A monitor is not included.

Acer has put real volume control buttons on the front panel of the PAC. Interestingly, the company has tied these physical controls directly to the software control panel of the “music center,” so either the software or the buttons can regulate volume.

The computer’s front panel also includes stereo headphone and microphone jacks. In the back are an RJ-11 standard phone jack, a coax antenna jack, a joystick port, parallel port and two serial ports. (And a partridge in a pear tree.)

Bundled software includes MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft Works for Windows (Multimedia edition), Bookshelf and Entertainment Package (game software), Prodigy Communications Service software and Delrina’s WinFax software for sending and receiving facsimiles.

Acer spokeswoman Rebecca Hurst says the computer was shipped on the same day it was announced (May 20), and the company will be showing the Personal Activity Center in a suite at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.

There are many things interesting about the PAC, but most notable is that Acer has stepped nicely around the issue of MPC-ness. It is an MPC-compatible, thus runs all MPC-labeled software, but does not bear the official MPC stamp on its case.

In other words, Acer has not paid dime-one to the MPC Marketing Council, which collects megabucks in licensing fees from companies who want the privilege of gluing an MPC logo on their computers. Microsoft has declined to comment on the record about the ramifications of such career moves on the part of its hardware vendors. But it is obvious by the fact that it has made bundling deals with Acer that it does not particularly disapprove.

So what, then, will come of the MPC Marketing Council when hardware vendors realize they don’t have to pay to say they’re MPC compatible?

Denise Caruso