Acer President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci resigns after disagreements with board members over the future path of the PC maker.
Acer, which over the past couple of years has competed with Dell for the
position of the world's second-largest maker of PCs, is looking for a new
president and CEO after Gianfranco Lanci resigned March 31 following a
disagreement with the board of directors over the direction of the company.
Lanci's
resignation came after a meeting with the directors, in which the two sides
could not agree on several aspects of Acer's future, from growth to customer
relations to brand management, the company said in a statement. The resignation
is immediate, and J.T. Wang, currently the company's chairman, will fill in as
acting CEO until a permanent replacement is found. Lanci had been talking with
the directors about the company's future for months, without being able to come
to an agreement, the company said in a statement.
Lanci
had been with Acer since 1997, was appointed president in 2005 and became CEO
in 2008.
The
resignation came less than a week after Acer executives lowered their first-quarter
PC sales forecast from a 3 percent increase over the same period last year to a
10 percent decline. Executives attributed the troubles to weaker demand in both
the United States
and Europe. The company's PC sales also reportedly have
been hurt by the rise in popularity of tablets, led by Apple's iPad.
Acer
also was a leader in the netbook space, which was popular during the global
recession but has begun to wane with the growth in tablets. Apple, which has
held a dominant position in the market since introducing its iPad last year,
now faces a host of competitors-including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Samsung
Motorola and Research In Motion-joining the fray.
Acer
in April is expected to release its
Android-based
Iconia Tab A501 4G tablet, which AT&T announced at the CTIA Wireless
2011 show it will sell.
"This
tablet is packed with features that will enable HD gaming and exceptional video
playback," David Haight, vice president of business development for
AT&T's Emerging Devices unit, said in a statement at the time of the
carrier's announcement. "It offers a first-class, on-the-go entertainment
experience."
Acer's
Wang said the company will look to expand its reach beyond PCs, though with the
understanding that the traditional form-factor still is central to the
company's future.
"The
personal computer remains the core of our business," Wang said in a statement.
"We have built up a strong foundation and will continue to expand within,
especially in the commercial PC segment. In addition, we are stepping into the
new mobile device market, where we will invest cautiously and aim to become one
of the leading players."
The
company needs to adapt to the changing conditions of the market, he said.
"We
have to change our business strategy as the PC industry landscape has changed a
lot with the rise of tablets and multiple PC operating systems," Wang
told
the Wall Street Journal.
Acer
last year also unveiled its
Android-based
Stream smartphones and the LumiRead e-reader device. In addition, the
company is making another push into the data center. In February, the company
unveiled a line of
x86-based
server and storage systems powered by processors from both Intel and
Advanced Micro Devices.
Given
the evolving nature of the PC industry, Acer's directors made the right
decision in accepting Lanci's resignation, according to company founder Stan
Shih.
"The
board had no choice but to make a decision," Shih said in an
emailed
statement to Bloomberg. "Faced with the changes in the environment,
restructuring and changes are unavoidable processes."
Lanci's
resignation should not impact Acer's operations, and all the employees have
been alerted to the change. Wang told the Wall Street Journal that other
executives with the company have agreed to stay with Acer, despite Lanci's
resignation.
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