Acer on the Brink?
Acer has been at the forefront of Taiwan's tech industry for years. However, 2011 saw the computer giant post its first loss in a decade.
Despite slashing 300 jobs in June, Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang has said breaking even this year has now become impossible. The admission came less than two months after Wang had predicted a full-year profit for 2011 — the latest in a series of wonky forecasts. Three times in 2011, the company has been forced to downwardly revise its shipping projections. Most recently, figures of 5-7 million in tablet sales were adjusted to around half that amount. Meanwhile, the company has been the fourth-worst performer on the Taiex, its shares plummeting 65 percent. Fourth also represents Acer's market share standing, with Dell and Lenovo knocking it back from second over the past year.
The advent of the tablet market has cut into Acer's netbook and laptop profits. The problem is whether Acer is responding with the right strategy. Gianfranco Lanci, who resigned as CEO in March, certainly didn't think so. The Italian wanted Acer to become more tablet- and mobile-oriented, and to expand its engineering workforce pool outside Taiwan. Lanci says Acer's bigwigs feared the “de-Taiwanization” of the firm. “People after a few years will decide who was wrong,” Lanci said in a recent interview.
如履薄冰── 宏碁王國能否再現？
宏碁多年來一直走在台灣科技界的最前端。然而，二○一一年卻看到這個電腦巨人公佈十年來的首次虧損。
儘管六月份已裁員三百人，董事長暨執行長王振堂已表示今年營收要持平是不可能了。這項聲明發表於王振堂預估二○一一年全年獲利後不到兩個月，此預測為宏碁一連串錯誤預測中最近的一個。二○一一年，這家公司被迫三次下修其出貨預測量。最近，五至七百萬台平板電腦的銷售估計量則調整至約原本數量的一半。同時，宏碁還是台股加權指數表現第四差的公司，股價已狂瀉 65%。第四也代表宏碁的市佔地位，因為戴爾與聯想在過去一年已將其從第二名的位置給拉了下來。
平板電腦市場的來臨吞食了宏碁的小筆電與筆電利潤。問題就在於宏碁是否能以對的策略回應。三月請辭執行長一職的蔣凡可‧蘭奇顯然不這麼認為。義大利籍的蘭奇希望宏碁能更偏平板電腦與手機導向，並將其工程人力團隊拓展至台灣以外。蘭奇表示宏碁高層擔憂公司會「去台灣化」。蘭奇在最近一次訪談中表示：「幾年後大家就會決定誰是錯的了。」
資料來源：biz 互動英語電子報
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