The mood was gloomy when J.T. Wang (王振堂), chairman and chief executive of Acer Inc (宏碁), took to the stage at the investor conference in Taipei on Thursday.
“When our brain was diagnosed with a problem that had caused the whole body to malfunction, we had to be put on the operating table for a procedure,” he said.
Such were Wang’s opening remarks — and he once again impressed investors and the media with his straightforward attitude.
This time, he likened brain surgery to the Acer board’s dismissal of former chief executive and president Gianfranco Lanci in late March.
“It was a decision that caused jitters both inside and outside ... Everyone was wondering whether it was the end of the road for us,” Wang said.
He gave Lanci, a 14-year veteran at Acer, the credit for turning the Taiwanese firm into a worldwide PC name.
The Italian joined Acer after Texas Instrument’s PC division was bought by the Taiwanese company in 1997. His rapport with partners in Europe was partly the reason he was appointed, fueling Acer’s rise to become the world’s No. 2 PC brand.
Things started to turn sour when Lanci missed shipment and revenue targets two quarters in a row, prompting Acer to lose market share and miss out on new growth in the tablets and -smartphone markets.
“Lanci was unshakeable in his view that maximizing shipment volumes was the correct approach, but we found that direction to be a departure from the right track,” Wang said. “The board had to make a decision to change the chief executive and then seek to restructure the company.”
Both Wang and an internal source to which Taipei Times spoke to get an insight into Lanci’s so-called resignation on March 31, described the former chief executive in the same terms: goal-oriented, aggressive and unshakeable on his own decisions.
He was given so much power by Acer that he had a say on everything from sales to shipments and Wang didn’t interfere.
Under the old management, every division competed with others, creating problems and undermining competitiveness, Wang said.
“A consulting firm told us that when an executive has a say in almost everything, the company is likely to be slow in formulating strategies to cope with sudden changes in the industry,” Wang said.
The changes he referred to were the rise of tablet PCs and smartphones, which Acer believes are opening up a new host of opportunities, two fields in which the company is determined not to miss out.
In contrast to notebook PCs that create data, tablets and smartphones are more focused on -“consuming data,” meaning users spend more time using applications such as games on these devices, the chairman said.
At a time when the dominance of the Wintel (Windows and Intel) camp is being chipped away at by the rising strength of the Android and ARM-based system on a chip, Acer sees new chances aplenty.
Lanci’s successor, Jim Wong (翁建仁), 53, agreed to lead the Taiwanese maker through the new round of challenges as he saw “new opportunities” arising from this shift in the technology paradigm, Wang said.
The soft-spoken Wong marked his first public appearance at the investor conference since his promotion, making an immediate impression with his command of English during the presentation.
He joined the Latin American regional sales division of Acer in 1986.
In the following decade, Wong held various managerial positions overseeing product management and marketing, gaining extensive experience in original design manufacturer relations and brand management, according to Acer’s corporate profile.
Wong is noted for his role in launching Acer’s first portable PC in the early 1990s. In 1999, he received the 17th Annual Management of Excellency Award in Taiwan; in 2000, he became vice president of Acer’s brand business unit; and in 2001 he was named president of IT Products Global Operations.
“We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the change in chief executive and the repeated failures to meet quarterly targets,” Wang said. “We hope everyone will give the new management team and Acer a second chance.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS