Gateway To Close All Retail Stores

John Lazzaro writes "Looks like Gateway is throwing in the towel and closing all of its remaining retail stores, according to a Reuters/Yahoo! report." The story notes: "Gateway's stores, which will be closed on April 9, have long been criticized by analysts and investors as an expensive drag on cash flow because of lease costs and the difficulty of managing inventories", and goes on to suggest: "...with [the acquisition of] eMachines, Gateway doesn't necessarily need the added distribution channel the stores gave the company. In addition to selling Gateway's wares over the phone and via the Internet, eMachines PCs are sold at major retailers such as Best Buy."

Comments

Re:This is sad

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

I hear ya on the bad experiences w/ Gateway. Back around early 1995, I ran the computer systems for a college book store. We bought a Gateway 386 to run Office and a VBA based app that I wrote for the managers to input the register tapes into, which would do all the department breakdowns, and associated work, and fax a report to headquarters.

Problem was, this machine couldn't run Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode. I had had a similar problem with a computer that I owned, and knew that this had to do with a faulty keyboard controller or circuits associated with it. Address Line 20 on the keyboard controller was actually used to switch between Protected and Enhanced mode on the 386. I related this information to Gateway tech support, and recieved incredulous reactions, assurances that such a thing was impossible, and no help whatsoever.

Shortly after the warrenty ran out, Gateway admitted that there was a fault in the keyboard controller that was causing our problem. They refused to make good, even though I had given them the answer months before, and insisted on charging for the motherboard swap. My boss at the time was not particularly clueful about these things, and declined to press the matter.

I, being a student at the time had to console myself with informing the manager of Gateway Customer service that "as long as I live, Gateway will never see another fucking cent from any person or company who comes to me for advice on computers. Enjoy that $200 fee, because it's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost sales" (and has).

Some grudges are worth holding ;)