Acer's entry into the lucrative smartphone market is in full swing, with four upcoming handsets planned for rollout while executives hint that non-Windows based devices and an app store are under consideration for roll-out later this year.

The world's third-largest PC vendor announced its first family of smartphones, called Tempo, last month at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona. The Tempo family is comprised of the M900, F900, X960 and DX900 and all of them use Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS. The phones are expected to be available in the next four or five months.

Acer's new smartphone line comes as rumors abound that new hardware players, including Dell and Microsoft, are preparing their own smartphone launches this year. It seems everyone in the tech sector is scrambling to cash in on the smartphone market, pegged to grow even during the recession, but hardware manufacturers facing declining sales may have more at stake if they fail to capitalize on the opportunity. Read the full story.