Acer, one of the world’s three biggest personal computer vendors, is going through a torrid time. The company has failed to hit published sales targets in successive quarters, and its shares are trading at about half their recent peak last August.

Gianfranco Lanci, the Taiwanese group’s chief executive, has paid with his job: he was unceremoniously defenestrated last month for underestimating the tablet boom and overestimating sales prospects for the group’s core laptop products.

Acer looks in danger of making a much bigger mistake under interim chief executive JT Wang. Mr Wang, who is also chairman, says he wants to shift the company’s focus from volume to margins, in what appears to be an attempt to make it look more like Apple – a form of flattery that could well prove fatal.