Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci has resigned from the company, with immediate effect, following spats with the Acer board over future directions. Chairman J T Wang will fill in as CEO until a new candidate is found and says the company has begun planning “organisational and operational adjustments for the sustainable future of Acer”.
Lanci’s resignation was rubber-stamped at a meeting of Acer’s board yesterday and his departure was communicated to worldwide employees.
Lanci, now 57, joined Acer from Texas Instrument in 1997 when the company bought TI’s portable-PC business. He held radically different views on Acer’s future directions from a majority of the board members. Observers note the company has so far failed to market a commercial tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad and the growing number of Android devices.
According to research house Isuppli, tablets – principally the iPad – ate into Acer’s PC sales last quarter, which saw Acer’s sales plummet, allowing Dell to overtake it and regain second place in the global PC market.
A DigiTimes report says Lanci and the board placed disagreed on matters of “scale, growth, customer value creation, brand position enhancement, resource allocation and methods of implementation”.
Acer says the change does not affect current operations. Said Wang: “The personal computer remains the core of our business. We have built up a strong foundation and will continue.” But he added: “We are stepping into the new mobile device market, where we will invest cautiously and aim to become one of the leading players.”
