Even months of negotiation couldn’t unite Acer Corp.’s board of directors and Gianfrano Lanci. The Taiwanese computer maker’s chief executive resigned today over irreconcilable differences on the company’s future. Acer Chairman J.T. Wang will succeed Lanci as chief executive as the company begins its search for a permanent replacement in the midst of many organizational and operational adjustments.

“On the company’s future development, Lanci held different views from a majority of the board members, and could not reach a consensus following several months’ of dialog. They placed different levels of importance on scale, growth, customer value creation, brand position enhancement, and on resource allocation and methods of implementation,” reads an Acer press release.

Acer commended Lanci for contributing “significantly toward Acer’s growth,” but maintains that it’s business-as-usual as at the world’s second-largest PC maker.  

All eyes will be on Acer and its plans for the future. The company’s strong laptop division has helped Acer sustain a top-three ranking among tech titans Hewlett-Packard and Dell. But as tablets grow in popularity, PC sales are slowly eroding.

In fact, while global PC shipments increased by 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, they were shy of the consensus 4.8 percent growth forecast, according to a report by the research firm Gartner.

As a result, companies such as Acer that rely heavily on their PC and laptop sales are beginning to feel the pinch. The company experienced a tough fourth quarter, selling only 2.1 million PC units in Q4, down approximately 30 percent compared to the same quarter last year, according to Business Insider.

What’s worse, last October, the Consumer Electronics Association speculated that netbook sales would drop by 12 percent in 2010, after nearly doubling the year before. What that means for Acer is certainly something that won’t be decided upon by Lanci.