It was in fact largely because of the iPad that former Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci was ousted from Acer.
The executive was essentially forced to leave his post after he failed to react to sluggish PC sales, and didn't do anything to reinvigorate its brand after the market began looking bleak.
But Lanci says he can't be the sole person to blame. In a recent heated interview with the blog Mobilized, he blamed the company at large for being unwilling to invest in the mobile market, even when the overall PC market was dwindling.
"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," he said.
"I said, 'Look, it is not de-Taiwanization.' 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," he continued.
But the official company line from Acer is that Lanci was a failed leader. It blames Lanci for being stiff and unwilling to change. The company says its ex-CEO was too focused on being a volume company, where it didn't matter what they sent out as long as it sent out the most.
Lanci "failed to come out with explanations earlier when the company was unable to deliver results that matched up with its targets in two consecutive quarters from October 2010 to March 2011," Acer said in a statement in response to Lanci's comments.
Clearly, though, Lanci does not want to exit quietly. "People after a few years will decide who was wrong," he said.
