Acer announced the launch of its first e-reader LimiRead, in cooperation with Founder and e-book platform providers of Barnes & Noble of the U.S. and Libri.de of Germany, with the B/W version scheduled to hit the market in the third quarter and the color version in the fourth quarter.

During a press conference in Beijing yesterday, J.T. Wang, chairman of Acer, pointed out that LumiRead will be a critical tool for Acer to achieve the goal of becoming a leader in the global ICT (information/communications technology), market which boasts annual capacity of US$600 billion, three times the scale of the PC market.

In addition to LumiRead, Acer also unveiled yesterday digital home-platform "Clear.fi" and multimedia-center Revo, designed to enable consumers to access various digital contents from various platforms and systems via their family network, thereby laying the groundwork for 4C convergence.

LumiRead embraces E-Ink e-paper, similar to Kindle, for B/W model and ARM of Qualcomm, similar to iPad, for color model, as well as the options of Windows 7 and Android for operating system. Contents are available in various languages, including English, Chinese, German, French, and Italian.

Meanwhile, Gianfranco Lanci, CEO of Acer, and Li You, CEO of Founder, signed a letter of intent for strategic cooperation yesterday, mainly in the fields of PC and e-book.

The cooperation will greatly facilitate Acer's effort in tapping the huge Chinese market, as Founder is the fourth largest PC brand in China, with market share reaching 6.3%, compared with 3.1% of Acer, at sixth place. The combination of the two will boast market share of 9.4%, the third largest in China, trailing Lenovo with 23.3%, and HP with 10.3%. The cooperation will cover an extensive scope, including product design, sales channel, and after-sales service.