There is trouble in paradise, and the problems have been ongoing for a couple of years now. Acer, the fourth largest PC maker in the world, has been trying to shuffle things up for quite a while.
The bursting of the netbooks bubble left the company in disarray.
And there have been talks of leadership changes for some time. Last we heard on the matter is the announcement earlier this month from CEO JT Wang that he was resigning. It was accompanied by news that Acer was also laying off seven percent of its workers.
The idea was to have Acer president Jim Wong take over the CEO duties on January 1. But now the company has announced that Wong has decided to resign as well.
Acer’s Board of Directors has elected company founder Stan Shih as Chairman and Interim Corporate Vice President. Since the PC maker has once again failed to bring in good financial numbers, Shih will return to lead, but will not be paid for his time. Shih added:
“I will honor and complete all the public affairs and event engagements that I have committed to, but I will also fully support Acer’s ICT device business and carry out the company transformation.”
Shih founded Acer in 1976 and retired in 2004.
The role of CEO will no longer be filled for the sake of better and efficient decision making. However, Wang and Wong will stick around as advisors in the company, as it tries to turn the ship around.
For now Shih has not dropped any pointers on what kind of a strategy the company is planning when it comes to Windows powered devices. Previous Acer leaders were rather vocal in their criticism of Microsoft, and Redmond’s decision to jump in the hardware game with Windows 8.
