Taiwan’s personal computer vendor Acer said it plans to buy US-based technology company iGware for $320 million. This move would allow Acer to enter lucrative cloud market and add value to its main hardware business, a tactic that’s readily spreading amongst device and hardware makers, from Dell to HP.  Acer is also paying an additional $75 million in a performance-based payout to iGware.

iGware specializes in cloud computing, which allows applications and data to be hosted online by technology firms instead of being installed and maintained on users’ machines. iGware’s cloud based software and infrastructure tools reportedly support more than 100 million consumer devices globally.

Acer is a market leader in the PC business, particularly in the low-cost notebook section, but has failed to counter the roaring success of tablets such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy tablet. Earlier this week, Acer opened a new global R&D office in Chongqing, China to work on the development of smartphones and tablet PCs.

“An ICT company without cloud-based technology will have difficulty in enhancing its company value,” Acer said in a statement on Thursday. “As a mid- to long-term investment objective, the valuable core technology and capabilities will help create uniqueness for the Acer brand,” it said.

Acer has been concentrating now on mobile device market and cloud business for future growth strategy. Acer will launch a cloud product by next year after its starts integrating iGware into its cloud software.

And Acer is not the only competitor eyeing the cloud space. Big players like Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP and Dell are looking to wrap their device offerings around cloud services in some form or fashion. The tablet war is pushing personal computer makers and service providers to focus more on research and development and market new tablet products as portals to the cloud.

HP has already released its TouchPad tablet, and in the process of building a full cloud stack that includes IaaS and PaaS offerings, an Open Cloud Marketplace and a public cloud offering.  Sony is mulling on its own iPad equivalent, and the list goes on; Lenovo, Amazon, HTC and Dell, all jumping towards similar trends.

The usage of social media applications, blogging, and other apps is also on the rise in the cloud. Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype makes it a front runner in voice and video chat, ready for mobile and social integration on several levels. Google’s new social platform Google+ extends its social structure even further beyond the realm of Google’s mobile platform. The growing use of Facebook and LinkedIn for business purposes have also increased, making them important points of integration and cloud storage/access as well. This all add to rising trend of consumerization of IT in the workplace.

People now prefer mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets for doing work. Mobile and Tablets are the key aspect of the growing inclination towards social, personal and cloud-based application, and when it comes to the future of connected devices like smartphones and tablets, the cloud will be at the center of those services.