Gianfranco Lanci’s departure from Acer was as harsh as it was abrupt. The (now former) chief executive was effectively told to leave after two bad quarters. Prior to that, he delivered stellar growth for six years as president and three as chief executive.
There is already talk that Mr Lanci was being made a scapegoat.
In Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, the Victorian writer Charles Mackay describes a company formed during the South Sea Bubble in 1720 which declared in its prospectus that it was “for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. After investors hurried to buy shares, the founder “set off the same evening for the Continent” and was never heard of again.
More than two decades ago, soon after starting out in the mobile phone business, Nokia found itself on the receiving end of a massive patent infringement lawsuit from the company that had pioneered cellular communications: Motorola.
The Finnish group was in a vulnerable position. As a newcomer, it lacked enough patents of its own to counter-sue Motorola and fight it to a standstill.
Continue reading: “Tech patent arms war reaches new level of intensity”
Microsoft has filed a formal complaint with European Union competition regulators over Google’s dominance of the internet search market, escalating a debate that has already placed the online search group at the centre of an EU probe.
In its complaint, Microsoft alleges that Google is abusing its dominance of the search market in Europe, where it controls 95 per cent of the market, and that it is impeding fair competition.
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Where Microsoft went wrong – by Paul Allen
The details of Paul Allen’s testy personal relationship with Bill Gates have been the most eye-catching part of his forthcoming memoir. But it is the Microsoft co-founder’s damning critique of the company’s current problems that could well prove more telling.
In a draft of the forthcoming book, seen by the FT, Mr Allen writes: “How did a company once at the forefront of technology and change fall so far behind? It’s a thorny question, with roots that go back decades, but I believe it boils down to three broad factors: scale, culture and leadership.”
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