Acer spokesman Henry Wang said the company is going to focus on profitability, not volume. Businessweek noted that Apple’s profit margin was 21.5% during its last fiscal year, while Acer’s was just 2.3%. Acer CFO Tu Che-min told Businessweek: “There is good consensus among the board members that the tablet is the way to go.”
Mr. Lanci focused Acer on notebooks, a strategy that seemed to make sense until Apple’s iPad arrived. Businessweek quoted from a report written by Nomura Holdings Inc. analyst Eve Jung: “We think Acer inevitably will see rising research and development expenses. Acer plans to focus more on product innovation to face growing competition from Apple’s iPad 2.”