Dear Acer: Your cloud strategy way late, way me-too

Acer kicked off the International Consumer Electronics Show with an ultrabook heavy lineup---no surprise---and a proprietary cloud service, which is a bit of a head scratcher.

CNET's Roger Cheng was on scene for that Acer press conference and reported the following on the cloud strategy (Techmeme).

Acer hopes to set its products apart through its proprietary AcerCloud service, which is designed to let customers sync files across multiple Acer products. In doing so, Acer is trying to emulate other major technology players such as Google, Apple, and Amazon, which rely heavily on cloud services themselves.

Acer demonstrated the three services that will initially be available on AcerCloud when it launches in the second quarter: PicStream, a photo-sharing service, AcerCloud docs for documents, and clear.fi Media for music. For PicStream and AcerCloud, the files will be stored online for 30 days. The service is expected to run on future Windows devices down the line.

Boy that's a tough sell. If all Acer can come up with is a clone of other cloud services, the company has serious problems.

Related: CES 2012: Acer announces Aspire Timeline Ultra laptops and world's thinnest Ultrabook, Aspire S5

Acer doesn't have the brand to compete with Amazon, Apple and Google. Raise your hand if you have an Acer laptop and tablet? Thought so. Acer lacks the brand loyalty to really convince consumers that connecting the company's devices is really so great. Acer looks way late and way too me too. Why would you put your docs on AcerCloud when other services Box, DropBox and Evernote can work on whatever device you have?

Also from CNET:

• Acer's 14 and 15-inch Timeline Ultra notebooks (photos)
• Aspire S5: Acer boasts world's thinnest ultrabook
• AcerCloud seeks favorable wind for ultrabooks