One formula that appeared foolproof for selling computers was direct sales by the manufacturer to the consumer. Dell, ___________, climbed to number two in PC sales by selling customized products directly on its website. ___________, the recent success of Acer, now number three in sales, suggests that the older formula of distributing commodity items through retailers might be best for today’s PC industry. Acer’s success can be attributed to three decisions it made. First, it sold off its division that manufactured components for other PC brands. _________, it correctly concluded that consumers, who generally prefer preconfigured PCs, would outnumber business customers. And ________, it decided to expand its line of inexpensive netbooks (small PCs for surfing the Web) just when the economic downturn increased the demand for cheaper PC products. These decisions appear to have paid off for Acer: last year, its market share rose 3 percentage points, from 8 to 11. ___________, Dell rose only 0.1 point, from 14.8 to 14.9.