World's second-largest PC manufacturer Acer today announced its expansion into the server market, releasing a full line of servers in categories like Tower, Rack and Blade along with Intel and Microsoft.

Currently, Acer has a strong presence in two server categories, mainly in Tower and Rack form factor serving government and BFSI verticals.

"Acer will further expand its portfolio with its new entry into Blader server category to address the needs of each business environment that requires upgrading or installing a new and reliable system network," S Rajendra, CMO, Acer India Pvt Ltd told reporters.

Acer also plans a product "Gemini" specifically designed for optimised density and can be used for applications that are memory and computer intensive. "As Acer is aggressive about increasing its Indian market presence in the server business, the company plans to double its market share to over 14 per cent from the present 7.5 per cent in Q1 of 2010", he said.

To achieve this, Acer plans to launch a wide range of 17 new models under four different server categories of Tower Servers, Rack Servers, Density Optimised servers and Blades.

These products will mainly aim at Enterpise, SMB, BFSI, Government, Public Sector, Education, Telecom and other corporate sectors.

"Acer with its 100 per cent indirect model will support the new line of business, which will enhance and boost the capacity of our channel partners to provide end to end solutions to our customers", Rajendran said.

Acer servers have an installed base of over 37000 units in India. "We sold over 2,000 servers in first quarter of 2010 and are looking at a unit growth of 42 per cent y-o-y in the server and PC business together", he said.

Acer occupies the fourth position in the server market in India after HP, Dell and IBM.