Skip to main content

Acer CEO resigns as PC sales decline

acer-gianfranco-lanci
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Acer’s CEO and President has resigned, effective immediately, the company said in a statement today. According to the press release, CEO Gianfranco Lanci was in a several month stalemate with the Acer board of directors over the direction of the company and brand. Chairman J.T. Wang will fill in for him until a proper successor is named.

Recommended Videos

Though Lanci was once the savior of Acer, joining the company in 1997 and being named president in 2005 and CEO in 2008 after helping to establish Acer in Europe. In recent years, the company has been competing with Dell as the second top-selling PC manufacturer. Times have been tough for PCs as of late, however. The rise of netbooks was good for Acer, but their death at the hands of the iPad has caused Acer’s PC sales to go from a 3 percent increase last year to a 10 percent loss this year.

Acer claims the change will not affect operations and asserts that the PC is still the core of its business. “The personal computer remains the core of our business,” says J.T. Wang. “We have built up a strong foundation and will continue to expand within, especially in the commercial PC segment. In addition, we are stepping into the new mobile device market, where we will invest cautiously and aim to become one of the leading players.”

Acer is set to release its Iconia Tab A501, an Android-based tablet, on AT&T in April. The company also unveiled a massive 4.8-inch Android smartphone, the Iconia Smart, in February. A dual-screened laptop is also coming.

Jeffrey Van Camp
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…
Get the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus laptop with 16GB of RAM for only $600
Dell Inspiron 16 Plus front angled view showing display and keyboard.

Dell is an excellent source of laptop deals for both premium machines and budget-friendly devices. If you're leaning toward the latter for your next purchase, you should consider the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. From an original price of $1,000, it will be yours for a more affordable $600 if you purchase it right now. The stocks that are part of this clearance sale may run out at any moment, so if you want to take advantage of the $400 discount, you're going to have to push through with your transaction for this laptop immediately.

Why you should buy the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus laptop

Read more
What is HDMI 2.2? Everything you need to know
The rear of the Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device has a reset button, Ethernet port, HDMI port, USB-A port, and a barrel power connector.

Officially announced at CES 2025, HDMI 2.2 is the next-generation HDMI standard that promises to double available bandwidth for higher resolution and refresh rate support, and will require a new cable to support these new standards. It will also bring with it advanced features for improved audio and video syncing between devices.

But the new cable isn't coming until later this year, and there are no signs of TVs supporting the new standard yet. Here's everything you need to know about HDMI 2.2.
What can HDMI 2.2 do?
The standout feature of HDMI 2.2 is that is allows for up to double the bandwidth of existing Ultra High Speed HDMI cables using the HDMI 2.1 protocol. HDMI 2.2 is rated for up to 96 Gbps, opening up support for native 16K resolution support without compression, or native 4K 240Hz without compression. Throw DSC on and it should support monitors up to 4K 480Hz or 8K in excess of 120Hz.

Read more
ChatGPT now interprets photos better than an art critic and an investigator combined
OpenAI press image

ChatGPT's recent image generation capabilities have challenged our previous understing of AI-generated media. The recently announced GPT-4o model demonstrates noteworthy abilities of interpreting images with high accuracy and recreating them with viral effects, such as that inspired by Studio Ghibli. It even masters text in AI-generated images, which has previously been difficult for AI. And now, it is launching two new models capable of dissecting images for cues to gather far more information that might even fail a human glance.

OpenAI announced two new models earlier this week that take ChatGPT's thinking abilities up a notch. Its new o3 model, which OpenAI calls its "most powerful reasoning model" improves on the existing interpretation and perception abilities, getting better at "coding, math, science, visual perception, and more," the organization claims. Meanwhile, the o4-mini is a smaller and faster model for "cost-efficient reasoning" in the same avenues. The news follows OpenAI's recent launch of the GPT-4.1 class of models, which brings faster processing and deeper context.

Read more