Ah, the indomitable climb of the once-small Taiwanese association. Acer chairman JT Wang has told investors in a discussion call this week that his company is upon track to overtake HP in worldwide laptop shipments prior to a year is by. That avowal is corroborated up by Gartner’s data, cited in a Wall Street Journal, which indicates that Acer shipped 9.49 million mobile computers in a initial entertain of 2010, only forward of HP’s 9.47 million. Positive vibes have been also being felt upon a desktop front, where Acer aims to change 10 million units this year, while a decent $15 million is being invested into “building the the smartphone platform based upon Google Inc.’s Android.” We’ll be curious to see either this thrifty strategy pays off opposite HP’s passionate $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, but one thing’s for sure: PC vendors are inspired for a little of which sweet smartphone cake.