In an interview with Mobilized, Lanci said he was pushing the company to become more mobile-focused and more global. Acer, he said, needed to look beyond Taiwan as the world shifted to one in which Intel and Microsoft had less power and computer makers needed to do more work for themselves.

“At that time, I already saw if we want to become a major player in this new world, we needed to do certain investments, mainly on software and on smartphones and tablets, on touch,” Lanci said.

Lanci said the company needed to go from 300 or 400 engineers to 1,000 engineers, with a greater focus on software and hardware integration. The talent the company needed, he said, wasn’t present in Taiwan.

“The real major issue was doing that in Taiwan, this was not possible,” Lanci said. “We needed to go outside Taiwan, be it China or India or even the U.S. or Europe, wherever you can find software resources, software know-how.”

Lanci, who was replaced as CEO in March, said that the interests that control Acer were worried that his plan would lead to a de-Taiwanization of the company.

“I said, ‘Look, it is not de-Taiwanization,’” he said. “It is just globalization. If we want to be in the top three (PC makers) in the next three to five years, we need to be a global company and we need to leverage resources wherever they are.”

Lanci had begun to talk about this strategy in a November interview with Mobilized.

For its part, Acer has placed the blame squarely on Lanci’s shoulders, suggesting he was looking for too much power and control while at the same time not delivering results.

Lanci concedes that the company was late in delivering on its smartphone and tablet vision, but said this was because it needed capabilities it did not have. As for the results, Lanci noted that Acer grew from a $10 billion company to a $20 billion one during his eight-year tenure, delivering consistent profits along the way.

“Last year we made more than $600 million in operating income,” he said. “Let’s see what they are able to do.”

Had the company followed through with his vision, Lanci said he is convinced it would have grown to be a $30 billion company and one that got a third of its sales from smartphones and tablets by 2015.

“People after a few years will decide who was wrong,” he said.

Although today’s tablets are a consumer phenomenon, Lanci said the push by Microsoft to deliver Windows on ARM-based chips will help the devices move solidly into the business domain.

“You can easily think about a tablet thin and light, like the current iPad 2,” he said, but offering everything that the PC offers as well. However, he said that Acer needed to do more to prepare for that world. In addition to boosting its own software capabilities, he said the company needed a different relationship with chipmakers. The PC world, he said, was one of buying and selling components, with pricing and availability based solely on volume. The mobile world, he said, is based on close partnerships and strategic alliances.

As for who is doing things right, Apple is clearly winning, but there are others also making moves to adjust for the shifting world.

“I see Samsung is probably doing the right thing,” he said. “HP, maybe. It depends what they are going to do with software and with WebOS.”

However, he said much of the PC industry is in a similar position where Acer was. Lanci isn’t sure what is next for him personally, but he hopes it will be in the PC industry–a place that has been home since 1982.

“I took two weeks’ vacation,” Lanci said. “Now, I am in the market and looking around. For sure I want to stay in this industry.”

Sources at Acer told DigiTimes that Apple’s iPad undercut the company badly in the netbook market. And it quickly became clear that simply boosting shipments of notebooks to win market share was no longer a viable strategy. “We were almost too successful in the past…but more recently the iPad and other new form factors have had a very big impact on the PC market,” Acer Chairman J.T. Wang told the Financial Times. “We have to change our business strategy.”

And leadership. Because Acer needs to replicate in tablets its success in notebooks. To do that, it must approach the market as Apple or HTC might, searching out profits on high margin devices. And according to Acer execs, Lanci was too busy fighting a pricing war with Dell and Hewlett-Packard to realize it. Said Acer CFO Tu Che-min, “There is good consensus among the board members that the tablet is the way to go.”

Time to chase profits over market share.

Stan Shih, the founder of the Taiwanese computer maker, had been sharply critical of the company’s performance in recent days, suggesting it was in a crisis after having to again lower earnings targets. The company has expanded in recent years through its acquisition of Gateway and other moves, but at times its lofty ambitions have exceeded its growth.

If you want to hear some of Lanci’s more colorful views, here’s an interview I did with him late last year, talking about tablets and Android in particular.

A check back through the archives reveals other highlights, including his prediction of how Acer could quickly dominate tablets despite the iPad and his 2009 take on Dell.

Here’s the full release from Acer on Lanci’s departure:

Acer CEO and President Gianfranco Lanci has resigned from the company, with immediate effect. Acer Chairman J.T. Wang takes acting role in the interim. The company has commenced with the planning of organizational and operational adjustments for the sustainable future of Acer.

The resignation was approved at a meeting of Acer’s Board of Directors today, and the company has communicated internally with its worldwide employees.

On the company’s future development, Lanci held different views from a majority of the board members, and could not reach a consensus following several months’ of dialog. They placed different levels of importance on scale, growth, customer value creation, brand position enhancement, and on resource allocation and methods of implementation.

The change does not affect current operations which are functioning as normal. Acer’s strong management team of multi-nationals has been well-informed and is committed to overseeing and implementing the company strategies, as does the amicable company relations with industry partners persist. Acer will continue to push for globalization, follow its multi-brand and channel business model, develop competitive products and services, and foster closer relations with key vendors and channel partners.

Acer Chairman, J.T. Wang expresses, “The personal computer remains the core of our business. 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.”

“In this new ICT industry,” continued Wang, “Acer needs a period of time for adjustment. With the spirit of entrepreneurship, we will face new challenges and look to the future with confidence.”

In his role as President and CEO, Lanci has contributed significantly toward Acer’s growth. The company expresses its true appreciation for Lanci’s efforts and wishes him all the best in his future endeavors.

Although Lanci is talking tough about the opportunity to rival Apple’s hit, he’s also the one who announced–then delayed–an Android tablet originally slated to be released this year.

“We could have an Android tablet already with Froyo,” Lanci said during a sit-down chat with Mobilized in New York last week. “We took the decision to wait for Honeycomb when it is available….Now you can have Gingerbread on a tablet, but we are not convinced it is the right solution.”

That was one of many insights Lanci shared during the interview, held ahead of the company’s big press conference where it showed off, among other things, a new dual-screen tablet based on Windows 7. Lanci said that, when it comes to productivity, he still sees full-blown Windows as the best option, even on tablets.

Lanci also chatted about plans for a Windows Phone 7 device, why he sees room for so many mobile operating systems and the company’s plans to bring 3-D screens to the phone and other mobile devices.

Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation:

Mobillized: Acer has a broad range of mobile products globally, but in the U.S. you are mainly thought of as a PC company with Gateway, eMachines, etc. What’s Acer’s strategy when it comes to mobile devices?

Lanci: We have a very simple strategy. We look at mobile as the biggest opportunity in terms of growth. We introduced a smartphone 18 months ago. We are working on tablets. What we want to be is a global provider of mobile solutions–smartphone, tablet, netbook, notebook–any kind of mobile, going from content creation to content consumption.

Q: In particular, at least in America, I’m not sure Acer means something in phones. Do you plan to change that?

A: We started with smartphones and we mainly focused on Europe. But we started also with some U.S. operators and we started working with some Chinese operators. Smartphones–we want them to become big. Today we are mainly Android, but we are also working on Windows Phone 7

Q: You guys had done Windows Mobile devices in your first batch of phones?

A: At the beginning we were mainly Windows Mobile devices, yes.

Q: What prompted you guys at first to shift most of your energy to Android and then what is bringing you back to consider Windows Phone 7?

A: We saw a lot of limitations on Windows Phone a couple of years ago and we moved to Android because of user experience, and even the possibility to be a little more creative from a content offering and so forth is better than on the Windows phone. If we look at Windows Phone 7, today, I think we see the same opportunity you can see on Android in terms of customization.

Q: In terms of Android, you look at it for phones, but also for tablets. You showed an Android tablet in May and said originally that you would have one in the fourth quarter.

A: We could have an Android tablet already with Froyo. We took the decision to wait for Honeycomb when it is available. I think it is going to be probably in Q1 (before we have an Android tablet). Now you can have Gingerbread on a tablet, but we are not convinced it is the right solution.

Q: There are a lot of operating systems out there. How do you see Windows vs. Android vs. some of the others?

A: We are also working on Meego but this is going to be second half of next year. When you think about a Windows tablet and you think about productivity, I think that a Windows tablet is still the best solution. When you think about media content and so on, Android today is a great solution and we think Meego will also be a good solution in the future.

Q; You also said a while back that Acer would be first with a Chrome OS netbook and originally that was going to be later this year. It sounds like that’s also a 2011 thing?

A: We are still working on a Chrome OS netbook, but you know probably better than us there are some delays from Google. We need to wait and see.

Q: You wouldn’t even put a time on it at this point?

A: I think today it’s almost unpredictable.

Q: Was the problem mainly technical?

A: I think it is a combination of things–better user interface, better integration with other Google applications

Q: How much is the mobile market influenced these days by Apple and the iPad?

A: Apple for sure is influencing the market. I also believe that if I look at Apple, they influence the market on one side, but there is always room for improvement on the other side. Take iPad–when they came out it was without Flash and with certain limitations. With Android products we will fix that. Talking about screen resolution and even in terms of touch, view angles–there are a lot of things where you still have big room for differentiation or improvement compared to Apple.

We also believe that 10 inches is going to be one of the standard (tablet) screen sizes, but also seven inches can be a good offer for the user

Q: But you decided it is better to wait until next year for a new version of Android?

A: Yes, we decided to wait.

Q: How important is battery life?

A: We think battery life is one of the most important factors when you think about mobile devices. It is important on netbooks and notebooks, but also on tablets. A tablet without good battery life really doesn’t make any sense. I think we started to work on battery life almost three years ago. Now we have a full range of notebooks, even netbooks, with more than eight hours of battery life. We are already looking how we can reach 10, 12 hours. We believe 12 hours is probably the optimal solution from a user’s point of view

Q: What about some of the other technologies we hear about, like 3-D screens? You have brought that pretty aggressively to notebooks. How has that paid off and do you see bringing it to phones?

A: I think we are going to do the same on phone, even on tablets. If you think about gaming, 3-D gaming has becoming quite popular. If you think about a 3-D tablet, you can play games. We are working on 3-D on a lot of things.

Are you surprised that others haven’t gone more aggressively. You came out with a 3-D notebook a while ago and we haven’t heard a lot from your competitors?

A: Yes, more than one year ago. When I look at notebooks or hardware, the number of companies doing innovation are not too many. I think we are one of the few companies left focused on innovation. This is maybe the reason why you don’t see it.

Welcome to Mobilized, the latest All Things Digital blog devoted to all things mobile. Mobilized will cover the wireless world from cell phones to tablets, as well as the networks they run on (or drop calls on).

In other words, all the issues raised by having the tiny little machines with us at all times.

If you are reading this on your Apple iPhone, Amazon Kindle, BlackBerry from Research in Motion, Google Android or other non-PC device: Congratulations, you are already Mobilized.

But, if you are sitting in front of a laptop or desktop as you are reading this–you might be a little behind the times, although on the plus side, you don’t have to squint nearly as much.

And, even if you printed this article out, I am happy you took the time to read it (Hi, Dad!).

In any case, I am hoping to cut through the jargon and the hype, so that this will be a spot that both the early adopters and the merely curious will be able to find items of interest.

And whether you are a mobile geek or not, mobile technology is poised to reshape your life. Cell phones aren’t just mini-computers and tablets aren’t just notebooks with their keyboards cut off. These products are reshaping not just how we consume media, but also the ways we interact with each
other.

Let me take a moment to introduce myself.

For those that don’t know me, I spent the last decade at CNET, covering everything from Apple and Microsoft to ill-fated products from the Audrey to the Foleo.

While mobile hasn’t been my full-time beat, I have always been a device junkie. I owned a Windows CE 1.0 device and several of the first attempts to marry a phone with a Palm Pilot. Most recently, I have spent the past several years covering Microsoft full-time and recently did a three-part series on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

I am passionate about technology and telling the stories about the people making the products that are changing the way we live. I hope to find room to tell all kinds of different stories in these pages.

I plan to start things off with an interview I did last week in New York with Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci. I also had a chance to catch up there with multitouch pioneer Jeff Han, who is beginning to shift some of his work from giant touchscreens to mobile devices.

Meanwhile, next week is the inaugural D: Dive into Mobile conference. I’ll be providing lots of coverage, of course, including backstage interviews with many of the speakers.

So, that’s my spiel. Be sure to sound off in the forums, whether you think I am right on track or completely off base. You can also drop me a note at the easy-to-remember email: Ina@AllThingsD.com.

That’s how long Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci figures it will take his company to overwhelm the iPad and commandeer Apple’s early lead in the tablet PC market.

“While iPad has gained successful sales performance and good market response, Apple is centered around the US market with a significant leading status, but its competitive strength may not play out in emerging and other markets, this is the opportunity for Acer,” Lanci told Digitimes recently. “Sales of iPad pushed forward very fast initially, but have slowed down in the past few weeks. … We hope our tablet PCs can reach a global market share of 10 percent to 20 percent initially, and become the market leader in 2-3 years.”

That seems an optimistic forecast given the company’s late start in the market. By the time its first tablets ship in spring of 2011, the iPad will be a year old and Apple will likely be gearing up for the launch of its successor. And Acer, as of yet, is unproven in the mobile computing space.

But the tablet market is still wide-open and Acer’s approach to it seems a wise one, strategically. Rather than betting on a single form-factor and OS, the company has developed a trio of tablets in two sizes, running on two platforms. In February, Acer will ship a Windows-based device with a 10.1-inch-display. And in April, it will ship two Android-based tablets, one with a 7-inch display and another with a 10.1-inch display (native 1280×800 screen resolution), a dual-core 1GHz processor, a front-facing camera for video calling, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, and HDMI output.

Between them, those three devices cater to a pretty wide range of enterprise and consumer tastes. Add to this some elegant design flourishes and Acer’s manufacturing heft and Lanci’s prediction doesn’t seem quite so outrageous. Remember, Acer was once viewed as an also-ran in the PC space. Today, it’s one of the top PC makers in the world. Which is not to say that it’s destined to become one of the top tablet makers in the world, just that it’s certainly a possibility. That said, the company has a long way to go before it overtakes Apple. The iPad and the iOS app ecosystem that Apple’s built around it have given Cupertino about 95.5 percent of the worldwide tablet market, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. And it won’t surrender it easily.

Be sure to check out Ina Fried’s in-depth interview with Gianfranco Lanci at Mobilized later today.

China, along with Brazil, will be key growth drivers for Acer this year, Gianfranco Lanci said during an interview.

Mr. Lanci sees a world-wide recovery in consumer demand following the global economic crisis. “Recovery is almost there everywhere,” he said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Gartner (IT) figures Acer sold 12.5 million PCs in the quarter, a year-over-year increase of 23.6 percent from last-year’s third quarter and 15.4 percent of the global market. By contrast, it says Dell (DELL) sold 10.3 million PCs–6.7 percent fewer than it sold a year ago–for a 12.8 percent market share. Meanwhile, IDC pegs Acer at 14 percent global market share and Dell at 12.7 percent.

Both research houses put Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on top, with Gartner showing the company at 19.9 percent of PCs shipped and IDC at 20.2 percent.

Gartner (IT) figures Acer sold 12.5 million PCs in the quarter, a year-over-year increase of 23.6 percent from last-year’s third quarter and 15.4 percent of the global market. By contrast, it says Dell (DELL) sold 10.3 million PCs–6.7 percent fewer than it sold a year ago–for a 12.8 percent market share. Meanwhile, IDC pegs Acer at 14 percent global market share and Dell at 12.7 percent.

Both research houses put Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on top, with Gartner showing the company at 19.9 percent of PCs shipped and IDC at 20.2 percent.

And once Acer does that, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)–the world’s largest PC maker by shipments–best start watching its back. Said Lanci: “I would expect not only to pass Dell very soon, but also to breach the gap with HP.”

Have Acer’s buyouts of Gateway and Packard Bell gone to Lanci’s head? Perhaps just a little. That said, the company has seen quite a bit of growth thanks to the netbook phenomenon, which shows no signs of abating.