Acer Inc (宏碁) founder Stan Shih (施振榮) said on Saturday he would take a positive attitude toward former Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci’s move to China’s Lenovo Group (聯想).
Lenovo — the No. 1 PC vendor in China and the world’s No. 3 PC retailer in the second quarter of this year — announced on its Web site on Friday that it had hired Lanci as a consultant to help -develop its consumer PC business.
Lanci, who left Acer in late March after eight years in the company, will focus on Lenovo’s integration of Medion AG, the German electronics retailer it acquired in July, the Chinese company said in the statement on its Web site.
Shih said he did not know Lenovo was pursuing Lanci until Friday.
“I believe Acer management will properly deal with the new development,” said Shih, who is no longer active in Acer’s management. “Everybody has the right to work, but they also have the obligation to fulfill their duties under a contract.”
Shih said that he was not familiar with Lanci’s contract with Acer and so he had no idea how Acer’s management would respond to Lanci’s new post.
Asked if Lanci’s move to Lenovo would have an impact on Acer, Shih said anything could happen.
“What counts is how you face up to new developments and how you respond. Nothing is too fatal to cope with,” Shih said. “It all depends on how you look at it and how you respond.”
Maintaining a positive mind-set was most helpful in tackling problems, he said, adding that competition should be welcomed, because the tougher the competition, the faster the progress.
When Acer reported huge second-quarter losses late last month, chairman J.T. Wang (王振堂) said one reason for the size of the losses was “payments to some senior executives” who had left, including Lanci.
Acer has remained tight-lipped on the amount it paid to Lanci following his resignation, but Wang said Acer paid him a severance fee “at an international level.”
According to high-tech sources, Lanci received US$10 million, while Acer’s former global marketing vice president, Gianpiero Morbello, and Aymar de Lencquesaing, ex-president of its Hand-held -Intelligence Group, each received “millions of US dollars.”
Giving Lanci NT$300 million in exchange for his agreement not to work for a competing company was acceptable to Acer, a source said.
A senior executive at the Taiwanese computer giant said Lanci had made contributions to Acer, helping it expand in foreign markets and making it the world’s No. 2 notebook vendor in 2009.
Acer’s share in the global PC market slid to fourth place in the second quarter of this year, a report by market researcher Gartner Inc said.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS