Acer Comes After Former...

Good morning, and welcome to our Tuesday edition of People Suing Each Other . In the far corner, we have the number four PC maker in the world, Acer, based out of Taiwan; and in the other corner we have Acer former CEO Gianfranco Lanci, based out of Italy, who resigned in February of 2011 after being with the company since 2007. The beef? Well, according to the Financial Times , Mr. Lanci signed a non-compete contract with Acer that was meant to last a full year after his resignation. However, Lanci instead hopped on the Lenovo train in September (about seven months after leaving Acer) as a consultant. Shortly after, he was appointed the head of Lenovo’s Europe, Middle East and Africa businesses last month. Between Lanci’s rise to the top at Acer and his transition to Lenovo, Acer was the number two PC maker in the world. Now? That spot would be filled with Lenovo, as Acer has dropped to number four. Before leaving Acer, Lanci had a clear vision for the company that he believes would’ve worked. The focus should have been on building up engineering at the firm by acquiring talent in both the hardware and software departments. At the same time, he saw the transition to mobile as an imminent one and knew the firm would have to build on that level. That inevitably means that Acer would’ve had to not only push the brand out to other parts of the world, but it would, in fact, have to source talent from those other parts too. To Acer investors, this sounded like a “de-Taiwanization” of the company, reports AllThingsD . But Lanci contends that if his vision had come to fruition over at Acer, the company would’ve grown to be a $30 billion company, bringing in over a third of its sales from smartphones and tablets by 2015. Instead Acer spent 2010 missing on its quarterly earnings, and paying $150 million for unsold inventory in Europe. Now the company is saying “We believe Mr. Lanci has clearly breached the terms of the non-compete agreement he entered into willingly… We believe we have a very robust case.”

Pressly Launches Electi...

Following its November launch , OnSwipe competitor (and TechCrunch Disrupt finalist ) Pressly is bringing another major media outlet’s content to the tablet interface. The company is today announcing the launch of a new publication called Electionism. The app was built for the Media Lab, an internal product innovation team inside The Economist Group, which includes The Economist, CQ Roll Call and other businesses. The new app offers coverage of the 2012 election in the U.S., including insight, analysis and other content from The Economist and CQ Roll Call. A section called the “Latest from Twitter” aggregates tweets from candidates, political pundits, publishers and other organizations, while a “Noted Elsewhere” section allows Economist journalists to share links to what they are reading. Like some other media outlets, including the iPad-only The Daily or the Financial Times’ own app, the  Electionism  app was built for tablet computers – it doesn’t exist as a newspaper or in any sort of printed format. In addition, if you try to visit the site from a desktop web browser, you’re alerted to the fact that the app is for tablets only, and pointed over to The Economist instead. The difference between something like The Daily and Electionism , however, is that the latter is an HTML5 web app – not an iOS app or Android app built using native code and sold in an app store. Pressly CTO  Peter Kieltyka  previously referred to his company’s product as “ Sencha  for tablets,” meaning that Pressly is meant to serve as a framework for building HTML5 web applications for the increasingly mobile-optimized web. The current version of the app supports the iPad (iOS 4.3+), the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Kindle Fire, the company says. Earlier this month, The Financial Times Group, which owns a 50% share of The Economist Group, acquired the development firm that built its own HTML5 web app, a move indicative of publishers’ growing interest in HTML5 . Pressly’s other big customers are also publishers, including The Toronto Star and Ziff Davis, which recently brought its tablet shopping experience Logicbuy to the iPad. If you’re using a supported tablet, you can view Electionism in action here .

Financial Times Acquire...

The Financial Times has acquired London-based application development firm Assanka, which built a nifty HTML5 web app – and other applications – for the publisher. (Hat tip to Benedict Evans ) FT staffers such as Katie Morley and Jonathan Wheatley started spreading the news on Twitter, garnering retweets from FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw and PR rep Tom Glover , who confirmed the acquisition to me but declined to share more details. Read more at TechCrunch Europe .

The Financial Times See...

One aspect of the current mobile revolution is that it costs money to be mobile and to be truly active on mobile devices. From the cost of the device to the cost of monthly data plans there are many people that will not have access to the mobile web much like the concerns that were in place regarding the Internet in general during its early years. Of course, certain groups like high finance types have no problem here. It’s this kind of clientele, in fact, that has allowed one traditional publisher, The Financial Times , to see significant increase in mobile access of their content. They produced an infographic to make this point and it is a testament to the impact of mobile on those products where price is not an issue.

Financial Times Hits 1M...

The newspaper industry is struggling to make ends meet. Mobile could be the solution, but the Apple App Store comes with a 30% tax on the subscriptions that established news outlets depend on. To buck Apple’s tax, London paper Financial Times decided to launch as a HTML5 mobile web app rather than a native app. Now it has proven the HTML5 model can work for news. Today Financial Times announced it has hit 1 million registered users who account for 20% of the outlet’s online page views, and 15% of new digital consumer subscriptions. HTML5 works great for news publishers because they predominantly transmit text and don’t require the processing power and deep hardware integrations afforded by native mobile apps. Instead, since HTML5 is accessible across device types and it doesn’t roadblock new users with a download, it helps publishers gain readers and sell more subscriptions without paying a platform fee. Despite grim projections about the future of paid news, FT found that users who register on mobile devices are 2.5 more likely to subscribe. Thanks to an aggressive set of in-app prompts, 45% of the 1 million registered users add the web app to their home screen, which can vastly increase return visits. Mobile is also changing when people consume the Financial Times. While the desktop site is most popular during mid-day, the mobile site sees a huge spike between 7 and 8am, presumably from people reading when they first wake up or on their commute. Other news outlets should see these figures and think critically about whether HTML5 might serve them better than a native app. Getting users to subscribe is tough enough without paying 30% for unnecessary functionality and a barrier to new readers.