Taiwan's Acer to acquire US firm for $320 mn

Taiwan's leading personal computer vendor Acer said Thursday it plans to buy US-based technology company iGware for $320 million. iGware specialises in cloud computing, which allows computer applications or data storages to be hosted online by technology firms instead of being installed and maintained on users' machines. Acer said it may pay another $75 million for the company in "earn-outs", extra compensation depending on whether certain financial goals are met in the future, but it did not give details. iGware’s cloud software and infrastructure tools currently enable and support more than 100 million consumer devices worldwide including Nintendo’s Wii, it said.