Cooperation between Taiwan-based PC vendor Acer and China-based Founder Group may benefit Acer's notebook manufacturing partners such as Quanta, Compal and Wistron, according to sources from notebook players.

Since Founder currently outsources most of its notebook orders to smaller notebook makers such as Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Pegatron Technology and Clevo, Founder is likely to take the advantage of Acer's large order volumes by placing orders along with Acer to save costs.

Pegatron may also see its desktop orders from Founder affected as Founder may cooperate with Acer over desktops. Acer's major desktop partners are Wistron, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and ECS.

Founder shipped about 600,000 notebooks in 2009 and about 240,000 units in the first quarter of 2010, ranking the eighth largest notebook brand in China and tenth in the Asia Pacific market. ECS is the company's major notebook partner and ships about 300,000-400,000 consumer models each year to Founder, while Pegatron and Quanta both have appreciable orders each year; and Clevo has a small amount of enterprise models.

Meanwhile, Founder shipped 3.03 million desktops in 2009 and 720,000 units in the first quarter, ranking the fourth largest desktop brand in the Asia Pacific market, behind Lenovo, HP and Dell. The company's current major desktop partners are ECS and Pegatron, while it also produces some desktops in house.