Acer to Acquire Gateway for $710 million

downix writes "On the way into work today, I heard about Acer buying Gateway. A bold move strategically, I wonder what consequences this will have for Gateway's employees and customers. As the purchase price was at $1.90 per share, those of us that purchased Gateway shares a few years ago are reminded just how far it has fallen."

Comments

That's one for the books

[Anonymous Coward]

Flappin' them jack, eh?

Customers?

[ThePolkapunk]

"I wonder what consequences this will have for Gateway's employees and customers."

Gateway has customers?!

Re:Customers?

[eln]

It's even funnier than that. According to the article, Acer only bought Gateway because Lenovo beat them to their first buyout target: Packard Bell!

So apparently their goal was to buy the shittiest computer company in existence, but they were stymied in that goal so they bought the second shittiest. Personally, I was surprised to see that both Packard Bell and Gateway still existed, but I guess when the CEO of Acer finds extra change in his couch cushions, he has to spend it on something.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the first time since college (which was years ago, about the era of Windows ME), I saw a Gateway in a store the other day. It was in a Wal-Mart, of all places.

Honestly, this is probably a good move. (La Fontaine voice) In a world where Dell reigns supreme, there's no room for fifty billion PC manufacturers any more.

Really can't speak for Gateway's quality any, since I've never had one, and the one person I know who actually had one was using Windows ME. You really can't tell if you have a crappy computer or a truly kick ass piece of hardware if yer running ME. :P Acer, though.. Recently picked up a very nice widescreen LCD monitor. Been nothing but impressed with it. So I dare say Gateway at least isn't at risk of becoming complete crap or anything.

Re:Customers?

[doombringerltx]

They sell a fair amount of bargain PCs under the emachines brand. Thats the only time I ever see new gateway products.

Re:Customers?

[shawnce]

Likely only for their established sale channels with partners.

Re:Customers?

[morgan_greywolf]

Personally, I was surprised to see that both Packard Bell and Gateway still existed, Packard Bell just doesn't sell in the United States anymore. They have some notebooks and some GPS devices and some USB-pen-drive-sized USB player. They got the reputation has being the crappiest computer company EVAR and were never able to quite live that down in the U.S. market.

Re:Customers?

[Colin Smith]

Remove the cheapest competitors from the market and the average profit per unit increases.

Re:Customers?

[value_added]

Gateway has customers?!

They did. And most people liked their moo-cow store decor. IIRC, things went into the toilet around the time they started selling systems with Windows ME installed.

Coincidence, bad karma or unfortunate timing?

Re:Customers?

[BosstonesOwn]

That and for the names. Acer needs a place to dump those cheap flat panels and parts , emchines and gateway brand is the exact place to do this , especially the emachines division. Acer is not bad parts so to say but they always seem to break early on the systems I have repaired. Guess this may make systems even cheaper down the line.

Re:Customers?

[Realistic_Dragon]

I used to be a Gateway customer - when they were good...

But then again I got a PDA in 2004 that was faster than my last Gateway computer. Guess they haven't been good for a while.

Re:Customers?

[jcr]

Their stores were what killed them. They spent a pile of money and put stores up everywhere, with little to no thought about whether any given location made sense or not. Apple's retail operation is a textbook case on how to do it right. Gateway's is a textbook case on how to botch it.

-jcr

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Acer has customers?!

Now I haven't tried an Acer in the last few years but in the past the Acer products I used were pretty poor quality (typical very cheap Chinese stuff like Goldstar).

Re:Customers?

[philwx]

I remember back in the early 90s when Gateway was a "rebel" clone company against the IBM PC's. They were the underdog with mail order customizable computers and fair prices. Unless my memory fails me.

Then after a little success, in come the greedy execs that try to go for the lowest denominator in quality that can still pass for functional; now it's trash years later. Where do the execs go? They find another company to ruin.

Re:Customers?

[jimstapleton]

I though they had consumers

say it with me kids, consumers

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like poetic justice.

Re:Customers?

[o'reor]

Despite the reputation, I bought a Packard-Bell notebook in January, and I've been quite happy with it so far. But then again, it's a notebook. No try to change various parts and therefore I did not hit compatibility problems with those parts. Linux (Mepis 6.0, Mandriva 2007, Fedora Core 6) installed flawlessly on that machine too.

So maybe they've gotten better after all... just my 2c anyway.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the computer repair portion of an IT department for a while, we had Gateway, HP, Compaq and Dell there (this was before the HP/Cpaq buyout).

Gateways hardware quality went south *LONG* before ME. I don't remember seeing a good quality piece of equipment in a Gateway, Win 95 to Win 2000. By the time XP came out we had switched from Gateway to Dell, although a few people chose other manufacturers for their comps occasionally.

Gateway had always been popular due to suppor I thought - though even that trailed off some time after the turn of the century.

Re:Customers?

[Herkum01]

What killed them was when the owner/founder of the company handing the reins over to a IBM manager/friend. This friend convinced him that he knew exactly how to run a large business and ended turning it into a large corporate bureaucracy. At that point it became a company of bean counters( customer service agents who would hang up on the customer after 12 minutes), management cronies and corporate meetings to play the blame game.

Re:Customers?

[dattaway]

Back then Gateways were the highest benchmarking computers and were well engineered. Their hardware, such as their keyboards were unique and had features that make them still valuable. They seem to have been buried under all the same commodity hardware badged under various brand names that's been flooding our market.

Re:Customers?

[jcr]

My statement and yours do not conflict.

-jcr

Re:Customers?

[demonbug]

I had (and still have, though it is my "backup" - it works, but the battery lasts about 30 seconds at this point) a Gateway laptop. I was very happy with it. While traveling, I ran into the need for a car adapter. No Problem, I thought, I can just head over to one of those new Gateway stores they're putting up everywhere and pick one up!

Nope. I find a store, ask if I can get a car adapter for my notebook, only to find out that Gateway stores don't actually carry anything, you can only order items from them. Not just power adapters (which I suppose aren't needed terribly often) - they don't stock anything. It was then that I realized Gateway was going to die - they spend all this money building stores all over the place, and then they don't even bother to stock them with a few useful items that their customers are likely to need. They basically just massively increased their costs without really offering any new or useful services. Brainy move!

I do still like that laptop, though.

Re:Customers?

[Verteiron]

They were actually Gateway 2000 back then, weren't they? Those were some good machines.

Re:Customers?

[garcia]

Their stores were what killed them. They spent a pile of money and put stores up everywhere, with little to no thought about whether any given location made sense or not.

It had to do with the fact that suddenly they had retail stores that still required you to do mail order to get the stuff *and* you now had to pay sales-tax!

How that made any sense I'll never know. Back then, the reason for going to the mail order places was to avoid sales tax. Yeah, you took a hit on shipping but you got a near custom built machine (if you so desired) for less or the same price as an in-store brand before sales tax.

Once they had you paying both shipping and sales tax for a third rate computer dumbed down to below consumer level, it wasn't worth it anymore.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

We used to purchase from Gateway until a couple months ago when we made to switch to HP.
Our sales rep, who was amazing, was the only thing holding us back from switching sooner. If there was any problem with service she would have her "team members" resolve the problem.

We did make the mistake of purchasing a NAS server from them. When the motherboard failed tech support said to buy a new board from Ebay because they didn't stock it.

Re:Customers?

[mabhatter654]

not having any ACTUAL COMPUTERS at the stores was the downfall I think. They had a lot of things like the Apple store, classes, training, but no repair, upgrade or hardware sales! It would seem to defeat the purpose of putting all the cool computers out there only to tell you to order it and wait 2 weeks for shipping. I also find my local "screwdriver" shop does this to. The point of being a computer store it to walk in and buy stuff!!! If you can't do that one simple thing, then I might as well go to BigBox where I can take home a crappy computer and take home the parts to upgrade it myself!!!

Re:Customers?

[stu42j]

Well, since Gateway bought eMachines in 2004, buying Gateway was a twofer! Two crappy computer companies for the price of one!

Re:Customers?

[broggyr]

I sure hope they didn't consume their computers - would be bad for digestion ;)

Re:Customers?

[jollyreaper]

I do still like that laptop, though. Since only a few companies actually make laptops and they're basically made to order for a given brand, just find out who made your Gateway when you're looking to replace, then see who they're building for. I love my Acer laptop even though the company's support ranks below Dell (yes, below Dell! That bad!). When it dies, I'm certainly going to find out who the original guys are building for then.

Re:Customers?

[Sponge Bath]

Their stores were what killed them.

Yup, they took a page from Compuadd's play book:
"This direct sales thing is great,
but what we really need is some brick and morter!"

Re:Customers?

[heinousjay]

My statement does not conflict with yours either.

This is nice, it's like Slashdot only happy and sweet.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal experience I can shed some light on that.

Gateway before then had a good reputation for customer service. lifetime service and most of the reps you'd talk to would solve your problems, period. In fact if a Gateway Tech wanted to "Nuke" a system (format/reload), they had to get permission from a senior rep who would grill you on your troubleshooting thus far, approvals were only given to cases with merit. About that time (late 2001) Gateway owned and operated most of it's own call centers.

Fast forward 6 months and one of their last call centers (actually one of their best) was being closed down in favor of outsourcers who got paid almost half of what we did. We had already experienced the aftermath of these "outsourcers", they had no real formal PC support training, worked on multiple "accounts" (not just Gatway, and not just PC support), and were having customers Format Reload as if it were the *only* troubleshooting step.

Funny thing is a good percentage of our calls those last months were people calling back because they were told to Format Reload for an issue that didn't require it (say a defective soundcard/ speakers/ etc) and thus needed *more* support. Anyway, the main thing GW had going for it was it's good customer service, but that was done away with to "cut costs"....

In retrospect, aside from getting laid off (along with 400 or so other people in the same town), Gateway used to be a great company to work for. They cared for their employees (as well as their customers). Some of the best benefits I knew of for the time, very good pay (though not extravagant), and incredibly good training. I can say that when we were laid off we were taken care of, we were all given 2 months, 3 weeks pay as a minimum severance *and* GW hired some folks for 2 months to help us hone our interviewing skills and find jobs (even hosted a job fair in the old call center).

Sorry to be posted anonymously, but that big check at the end came with an NDA.

Re:Customers?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Your statement's a jerk and wants to murder babies.

My statement wants to give all statements universal health care.

Re:Customers?

[AndyChrist]

Things went to shit WAY earlier than that.

As early as 1997, they were known by computer support at my university as "Rapeway."

They had built a reputation for quality and service, but then decided to abandon both and ride that reputation into the ground, selling inferior, unreliable hardware at the prices their name commanded them before their fall.

Packard Bell did this, albeit with a stolen pseudo-reputation (along the lines of Rockwood or Kenford). Compaq did it. HP seems to be in the process of doing it, and Dell is flirting with it. The Big Three US automakers did it. It's a decades-long, proud tradition of failure.

Re:Customers?

[Hognoxious]

I have a Gateway laptop that I bought when Win95, Pentium 233 and a 5 gig HD were state of the art. It still goes, or did last time I fired it up a few months ago. Its replacement totally died and the one that came after that is undergoing surgery as we speak.

Their customer service was great too, I had to send it back for repair once and they pretty much sent me a new machine with my old disk in it - I could tell because scuffs on the case & a bruise I'd put on the LCD were gone.

Re:Customers?

[asilentthing]

I was confused by that too. Apparently, though, Packard Bell has a fairly respected name in Europe - selling computers, wireless networking equipment, audio players, and tv applications(?) - at least, according to wikipedia.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean, "Gateway has employees?"

Re:Customers?

[An ominous Cow art]

Speaking of old clone companies, I was very surprised to hear recently that Everex is still around and still selling computers. The company I'm working at used to buy all Everex machines back in the early-mid 90s. I loved the feel of the keyboards they used to come with - very like my cherished IBM Type M, but 'smoother' and even nicer to type on.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

cronyism, nepotism and patronism rule!

excessive affluence is the cancer of america

Re:Customers?

[schwaang]

That and for the names. Acer needs a place to dump those cheap flat panels and parts , emchines and gateway brand is the exact place to do this , especially the emachines division. Acer is not bad parts so to say but they always seem to break early on the systems I have repaired. Guess this may make systems even cheaper down the line.

I haven't noticed unusual quality problems on the Acer/Acer Peripherals/BenQ stuff I've bought over the years. That said, I would never by a flat panel from anyone without a 3-year warranty.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was murdered as a baby, you insensitive clod!

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than that, even. By buying Gateway, Acer BECOMES able to buy Packard Bell and stops Lenovo from getting it. Gateway owns a right of first refusal on Packard Bell, and just after the deal to purchase Gateway was completed, Gateway filed to exercise those rights.

Re:Customers?

[torrentami]

I guess Wang Computers wasn't available.

Re:Customers?

[Aliriza]

eMachines should have bought Gateway instead , they were better.

Re:Customers?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Don't forget that having a local presence made all Gateway purchases subject to both state and local sales taxes. This gave them a final cost disadvantage when compared to Dell that didn't have such tax requirements.

Re:Customers?

[Falkentyne]

I haven't seen a Packard-Bell machine in a very long time. I didn't even know they were still in business. I did however pick up a Gateway laptop last year around this time from Best Buy. They had a $100 off coupon that regular customers aren't really supposed to know about and it was on sale with no rebates and came with some discounts on bundle items.

All in all I like the laptop - I did upgrade the slow 4200 rpm hard drive (who uses 4200rpm drives anymore?!) with a 5400rpm one and upgraded the memory from 512 to 1GB. It runs great now for all home/office type stuff and watching movies. It's not a gaming machine and actually runs hotter than my new gaming laptop when doing regular browsing/office work but it works good.

I think it came with a 1 year warranty.. kinda curious how that's going to work out now as I might still have a month or two left.

Re:Customers?

[belmolis]

How do you find out who the actual manufacturer is and who they are building for now?

Re:Customers?

[TekPolitik]

So apparently their goal was to buy the shittiest computer company in existence, but they were stymied in that goal so they bought the second shittiest.

They bought themselves?!?!?!

Re:Customers?

[Reaperducer]

their keyboards were unique and had features that make them still valuable.

Like what? I never had a Gateway.

Re:Customers?

[Anonymous Coward]

So apparently their goal was to buy the shittiest computer company in existence, but they were stymied in that goal so they bought the second shittiest.

I have an eMachine desktop, eMachine laptop, and Gateway laptop. They're no Dell XPS's, but for the price I paid for them, I've seen an excellent return. My desktop isn't the greatest Linux box, but it works. It runs Windows very well.

(I also own an HP desktop, two Dell desktops, an two custom built machines. All work well in their own right (except for maybe the HP, which has always sucked).

Re:Customers?

[dattaway]

Behold, the Gateway Anykey Keyboard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anykey

Re:Customers?

[chromozone]

One of the best computers I owned is my Gateway 500s from 2002. I still have it and only replaced the power suppy despite heavy use. It was a Consumer Reports "Best Buy" in 2002. The service used to be pretty decent like you write. I was helped quite a bit when I put a video card into a computer with integrated video. The rep must have spent a couple hours with me over 4 calls or so. Just two years latter I found the first few minutes speaking with a rep had become about him asking questions looking for a way to dump me. If I had a new hard drive not bought from Gateway they would say "tough luck". I am sorry to see another old American computer company get taken up like salavge.

Re:Customers?

[jamar0303]

On the topic of Goldstar- I'm pretty sure they're not Chinese. They're Korean, and they're still around (hint- they're called LG now).

Re:Customers?

[ShadowsHawk]

I purchased an Acer 3680 laptop two days ago. I wiped vista and loaded XP only to discover that the touchpad didn't function. It took quite a while to find a phone number to contact Acer and then the moronic support had they gave me a hard time about getting a RMA even though he agreed that it was defective. I finally hung up and brought it back to store to demand a refund. I purchased a Gateway for $50 more and it seems to be working fine. The only complaint that I have is they do not provide XP drivers, so I was forced to track down the OEM drivers.

Re:Customers?

[shadowbearer]

lol. Yeah, some of their products have been pretty bad. But I'm typing this on an 800mhz Celeron Acer Travelmate 212 laptop that I got for twenty bucks (display still worked, intended to use it as a picture frame project and instead replaced a couple components on the power board and loaded debian on it); it's been running 24/7 for three years now despite being dropped, rained on, peed on by a cat (with the lid open) and resulting surgical indignities - plus keyboard abuse, I'm a heavy-handed speed typist and typically go thru fifty dollar keyboards at the rate of several per year. But not this one. It's getting a little soft, but still very usable. I have a 23lb tomcat who has figured out how to push the lid down and likes to sleep on it... :)

  It's impressed me enough that it's replacement (it's too slow and too small a display for what I do now, multiple lan VMs, minor 3D work, 'net, etc) is going to be an Acer Aspire 5610/5630 - which are relatively inexpensive ($500-600 sealed box on ebay), have good reviews and near-perfect linux compatibility according the experiences I've read about.

  So Acer must be doing *something* right :)

Cheers,
SB

two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

what are they trying to do, build the suckiest computer evar?

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[computerman413]

I'm typing this on a Gateway, and am much happier with this system than I ever was with my Dell or HP.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[gn0min0mic0n]

Several years ago my mother bought a Gateway, and that was when I learned to use a PC. It was a P133, with 32MB RAM and a 1.5GB hard drive, and it ran Windows 95 (go ahead and laugh, I know I do when I think about it). I learned how to use DOS commands to get my games running, and the basics of the Internet/dial-up on that thing.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[phorm]

You forgot the #@$)(*! NO CARRIER part...

Oh wait, were you serious? I've serviced Dell's, HP's, and Gateways. While the former aren't great comparable to a lot of home-built systems, they're usually not too terrible except for the preloaded crapware. The worst issue I've had with Dell is the seemingly-deliberate introduced incompatibilities with consumer parts (to sell you Dell parts, like a floppy drive at 2.5x normal cost). Gateways, when they blow up (and I think the only reason I don't end up fixing more of them is because they're luckily not that common) tend to have all sorts of interesting components inside... usually a mix of hardware from brands I've never heard of, from companies that no longer exist, because they either recreate themselves regularly to avoid bad publicity or just died off due to suckishess.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[jcr]

Wow, talk about damning with faint praise...

-jcr

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[no_pets]

Maybe they just think that cow hide boxes look cool.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[S.O.B.]

Several years ago my mother bought a Gateway, and that was when I learned to use a PC. It was a P133, with 32MB RAM and a 1.5GB hard drive, and it ran Windows 95 (go ahead and laugh, I know I do when I think about it).

More than several years ago (24 years ago to be exact) I worked on a brand new IBM XT with an Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz, 128KB of RAM and a 10MB hard drive. It ran IBM DOS 2.1. In modern terms that would be a 0.00477 GHz processor with 0.000128GB of RAM and a 0.010GB hard drive. When I think about it I don't laugh...I cry.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[sgholt]

Ok, I am actually shocked by the anti-Acer and anti-Gateway posts...I personally think that these are 2 of the best computer companies in recent history. Who makes a better machine? Dell, Compaq, HP, Packard Bell? Please, I don't think so...
I would rather build my own machine and have. I also still have my first computer, an Acer Acros P75 (about 15 years old), still works fine...I have a Gateway(about 6-7 years old)...with upgrades I did it still works fine too. My Acer laptop is also in great shape, you will note that Acer has been building laptops longer than anyone.
I have several others that are local shop builds...all in good shape. Why have I not had problems?
hmmm...I don't know, I treat my machines right, I clean them regularly, I use the proper components when I upgrade...I service all my own machines which may be a more important factor in owning a computer than the brand...but then I have always thought that it was important to learn how things work and to how to fix them when they don't.

I think this purchase will only be good for all concerned!

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[somersault]

Why would anyone laugh, unless this was in 2002 or something? I used Windows 98 at home until I got fed up of the latest games requiring XP.. I didn't start using PCs until around 99 though, it was always Macs and Amigas before that.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[canUbeleiveIT]

Gateways, when they blow up (and I think the only reason I don't end up fixing more of them is because they're luckily not that common) tend to have all sorts of interesting components inside... usually a mix of hardware from brands I've never heard of, from companies that no longer exist, because they either recreate themselves regularly to avoid bad publicity or just died off due to suckishess. What components exactly are so off-brand? I've never seen a brand-name computer with a motherboard, processor, hard drive, video card or sound card that wasn't a recognizable brand. In my opinion, the cases on an eMachines, Gateway or Dell are usually better than an entry-level aftermarket case. So what are you left with? An off-brand optical or floppy drive? Even "good" brands of those items break with frightening regularity.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[QuantumRiff]

Its pretty hard to catch up to the huge lead Packard Bell developed in the past. Truly the worlds first "semi-disposable" computer..

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[turnipsatemybaby]

Whoa... you had a hard drive?

I didn't even get that much. I had two floppy drives and that's it.

Cue the "luxury" jokes in 3...2...1...

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[nuzak]

> Who makes a better machine? Dell, Compaq, HP, Packard Bell?

Yes, Yes, Yes (same company), and no. The last one is already gone.

> Please, I don't think so...

The analysts, the reviewers, and the market all say different. You rebel you.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[UncleTogie]

I had two floppy drives and that's it.
Lucky, you had floppies. :P Try waiting 10 minutes to load a 16K program from cassette, just to find the volume was too low/high and you had to start over. Wish I still had the box, even if you *can* find TRS-80 emulators out there...

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[sgholt]

yeah...but my puter still works...nah nah nah...:)

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[xtracto]

You were very lucky indeed, my father has some of his (Masters) thesis data (processed by using some computer at Mexico's UNAM) in nothing less than punch cards. It is very amazing to know what people achieved by using such technology :)

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

More than several years ago (24 years ago to be exact) I worked on a brand new IBM XT with an Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz, 128KB of RAM and a 10MB hard drive.

Thats crazy, Why did'nt you buy the Dell 3 ghz CPU w/ 2GB RAM, 250GB? They are less than $1,000 w/ a 19" LCD. You must have been pretty foolish back then.

Wait, I forgot the tags

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Cro Magnon]

Oddly, I had better luck with Gateway machines than I did with either Dell or Compaq.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[jollyreaper]

More than several years ago (24 years ago to be exact) I worked on a brand new IBM XT with an Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz, 128KB of RAM and a 10MB hard drive. It ran IBM DOS 2.1. In modern terms that would be a 0.00477 GHz processor with 0.000128GB of RAM and a 0.010GB hard drive. When I think about it I don't laugh...I cry. First computer was an XT, I think it ran at 10mhz with turbo, 640k, 20mb drive. My stepdad couldn't stand how the EGA screen looked so he sprung for the VGA screen and adapter. I remember being so fucking impressed by gifs. "Wow! It's like a picture! On your computer!" I also remember placing a call to Origin to tell them how inconsiderate they were in making games bigger than my entire hard drive.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[jointm1k]

You are not allowed to call "cue luxury jokes 3 2 1" after you just made one yourself.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[slas6654]

I once walked three miles home from school in a blinding snow storm using a home-made GPS system I developed using a base-2 Egyptian abacus, compass and broken protractor.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are so lucky! In my time this type of threads were considered LAME!

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Speedracer1870]

My school forced us to buy an acer through them "at cost" as part of becoming freshmen. Mine crashes about once a trimester. I've had to send it back to acer twice, and each time it comes back with a new problem and a half-assed repair job. The only reason I haven't thrown it off the bridge wing of my ship is because it is illegal to dump plastic overboard. The fish deserve better... THINK OF THE FISH!

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Apple //e, nearly 1 MHz, 64K plus 64K, and a pair of 140K floppies. Upgraded to have a 64K hardware buffer on the printer card, and 288 K of Ram dedicated to emulating two more disk drives. That got bumped up to a 768K bank-switched RAM card and an 800K 3.5" floppy drive. And the processor got bumped up to 8 MHz.... Those were the days.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[hairyfeet]

I still have two Gateway Astro systems at my moms place.The Astro may be underpowered (P3 400Mhz,64Mb RAM) but it was built like a tank and it's all-in-one design made it a great Granny box.My mom still plays the original Age of Empires and her puzzle games on her Astro.

She loves that thing so much that she took my spare and stuck it in the closet so she'll have a replacement when/if the thing ever dies.They may be crap now,but they used to build some tough machines.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[jollyreaper]

Apple //e, nearly 1 MHz, 64K plus 64K, and a pair of 140K floppies. Upgraded to have a 64K hardware buffer on the printer card, and 288 K of Ram dedicated to emulating two more disk drives. That got bumped up to a 768K bank-switched RAM card and an 800K 3.5" floppy drive. And the processor got bumped up to 8 MHz.... Those were the days. You know what? I saw Pirates! on Apple ][, I'm playing the latest incarnation on my PC. I have to say, the new one rocks! Nostalgia is obsolete. You know how we all say we'd play a plain on' remake of a classic so long as they updated the graphics? Pirates is like that. Now when are they going to give me Syndicate and X-Com goddamnit?!

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[ImaLamer]

Hey, my first "PC" was a TI-99/4A. It didn't have a hard drive and the floppy drive was bigger than the PC itself.

That was a hand-me-down after a few years (it was at my grandparents place, they got it free when they bought carpet) when they finally got a TRS/Tandy, until my brother smashed it with a hammer. But having that first machine to play with changed my life. Later I would make my mom buy a Pentium I, 90Mhz, instead of buying me a car.

I'll never forget being in the store and he saying to me: "Now, if I buy this computer I won't be able to get you a car when you turn 16." It took 3 seconds of thinking to say "I just want this PC"

I didn't get my drivers license until I was almost 18.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Machtyn]

The thing was, it probably ran better than a Windows ME or Vista machine does today.

/woah! zing!

/my first PC = 286, 640KB memory, 20MB HDD, EGA video, 4800 Modem. I still know what the directory structure was, where all the important files were, and why I had to hide a certain game folder.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Wdomburg]

Luxury! You had lowercase letters and everything! Apple II+. Same 1MHz processor, 48K plus 16K (on the language card). No emulated drives, no RAM card, no 3.5" floppy. Hayes 300 baud modem that picked out of a dumpster and restored to working order through liberal application of solder and electrical tape. :)

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[lannocc]

I still have my TRS-80 Model 4. It's fun to turn it on every now and then and amazing that it still works!

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[dr.g]

Ever hear of Tri-Star? Motherboard manufacturer for eMachines. I did support for them years ago, and WE couldn't find any information on them. "What video chip is integrated on your board? No idea, sir. Sorry." Scary shit*.

eMachines bought no-name (LITERALLY no-name) modems in lots of 10k for under $2/unit. The used a 120w power supply that was below-standard size to fit in their mini-boxes and it was only produced by one factory...when it (the factory, not the power supply) was damaged in that Taiwanese earthquake/fire/Godzirra attack back about 2001 (circa), they spent HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on many, many thousands of support calls from customers whose computers were unusable because they could NOT replace these (frequently-failing) PSs. They were unavailable for months. A disaster.

eMachines had LOTS of stuff like that in their systems. Supposedly, right before the Gateway purchase, they started using 'real' MBs and other components, but continued to save production costs on the cheapest RAM in existence and cheap power supplies. These hardware design decisions, of course, generated huge support costs, but that's one part of the company earning bonuses while another part has to explain why they can't hit their metrics. Pretty funny. Unless you owned one of them. Or worked in their support (I got out wit a quickness.). But when Gateway purchased them, they were making money and Gateway was not. Go figger.

Oh, and I once got a cheap Packard-Bell from an employee who let me look at their support database. I was checking the 'issues' on the various motherboards, and came across one (the 800, IIRC) that had a list a mile long. He explained it was a "brilliant" design that was meant to compatible with AMD, Intel and CYRIX processors. The support and replacement costs for this one horrible design decision may have caused NEC to shut down PB North America altogether, cause they sold millions of 'em.



*-oh looky! They've become a real company: http://www.tristar4you.com/

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[phorm]

Off the top of my head I can recall a few had very odd mainboards, as I tried to find motherboard drivers only to discover the company no longer existed, and the brand itself was very oddball. Floppy/optical drives I wouldn't be so concerned about the brand of, and generally video/sound are integrated on cheaper machines anyways.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

More than several years ago (30 years ago), I bought my first computer, a brand new Commodore PET. It had a .001 GHz 6502 processor. I paid $200 extra to go from 4k of ram to 8k. 8k, that is 8192 bytes. It had no hard drive or floppy drive. It saved programs on cassette tapes. (Yeah, the ones that music used to come on. You had to fast forward to about where you thought the program started, then type a command to load from the tape drive.)

It did come with a great manual, it had a complete memory map. You could peek and poke directly to video or the keyboard buffer or anyplace else.

Re:two wrongs don't make a right

[turnipsatemybaby]

I wasn't though. My old XT *didn't* have a hard drive. It was only a year or two later that we shelled out a grand for a modem and a whopping 40MB drive that the sales person assured me I would never be able to fill up.

Good move by Acer

[Anonymous Coward]

But too bad for gateway shareholders who were in at a higher price per share. Anyway, this gives Acer a nationally recognized brand name to use as a vehicle for their products.

Gateway after sales service sucks

[Alain Williams]

I gave up buying Gateway years ago. The machines were OK, but if something went wrong getting it fixed (and I was quite willing to pay) was a nightmare. Their administrators were incompetent, disinterested and I lost large amounts of time trying to get simple things done.

This can only be a good thing for customers. Gateway: RIP - at last!

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Tofystedeth]

Tell me about it. My work computer had the screen die, and since it was out of warranty, we had to send it in to get it replaced. Somehow in the process of fixing the screen, they managed to screw up the harddrive.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Arathon]

Ummm...apparently you've never tried Acer's customer service. I had one of their Ferrari 3200 laptops (i.e., a premium-brand, ridiculously expensive and therefore theoretically high-priority-support purchase), and it was unbelievably miserable. Their turnaround time was horrible, I was a better tech than the support reps, and when my hard drive failed and I asked for a replacement, they sent me a DESKTOP hard drive.

This sounds to me like nothing nothing more than a company I hate with my whole soul buying out a company I could not care less about.

On the other hand...maybe this could be really cool. I could totally see a Ferrari-branded, Holstein-spotted laptop....now that would really Turn Heads...

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[plague3106]

Indeed. The heads would then quickly start laughing at you. I could never take seriously a computer manufacturer that associated itself with cows. That, and the brand new gateway one of my dormmates got in college proved it was shitty beyond anything I'd ever seen. It must have had a blazing fast 2000rpm hard drive... ugh.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[jombeewoof]

Tell me about it. My work computer had the screen die, and since it was out of warranty, we had to send it in to get it replaced. Somehow in the process of fixing the screen, they managed to screw up the harddrive. Why would you send in the whole computer, when only the screen was dead. Unless it was a laptop, that may have been the stupidest thing you did all year.
well, there was that other thing, but we won't talk about that

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Tofystedeth]

Its not a laptop, but it isn't a standard desktop. It's one of those stupid hybrids, where the whole of the computer (except peripherals/input) are built into the back/bottom of the screen. I hate hate hate them.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Waffle Iron]

I had one of their Ferrari 3200 laptops

Ah yes, combining the prestige of a Taiwanese electronics OEM with the affordability and reliability of an Italian sports car manufacturer. It's a match made in heaven.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[operagost]

Even if it is a laptop, you should only send in the bare machine and any relevant parts. Dell actually requires this, probably because it has the benefit of protecting Dell if you claim that it came back with parts missing. The battery, hard disk, and RAM are easily removed.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[demonbug]

Thank Apple for that annoying idea (all the fricking iMac clones).

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Slack3r78]

Somebody hasn't dealt with Gateway's service in a couple of years. I bought a Gateway MX6625 a couple of years ago because I got it at a steal. Really solid, well-designed notebook in general and that entire series of notebook was really easy to work on if something happened.

Anyway, the original AC adapter that came with mine was defective and would overheat every once in a while. I call up Gateway tech support, get somebody in the US who speaks clear English, and within 15 minutes (counting hold time) I had an RMA setup and they cross-shipped me a new adapter overnight.

About 8 months into my owning the notebook, the screen developed some backlight leakage in one corner. Again, I called up tech support and had an RMA within 15-20 minutes. Gateway payed for DHL overnight both ways. Once they received the notebook, it was given to a technician and fixed in about 4 hours. Long story short, my total downtime was less than 72 hours.

I've since sold that notebook to a friend of mine and bought a Macbook Pro, but as someone working in the business, I was absolutely [i]shocked[/i] at how solid Gateway's after sales support was, and would say without hesitation that it was probably the best in the industry and would (and did) recommend them to anyone that asked.

Gateway moved out of the ultra low-end of the market a few years ago. If you looked at their website, they had nothing in the $500 range that Dell and HP fight over and had instead been focusing on the mid-upper range of the market, and backing it with fantastic tech support.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[SatanicPuppy]

Eh. My few experiences with them were pretty good, at least compared to Dell. Short calls, to the point, no run-around with the 3-ring binder of crap that Dell requires all tech's to run through before they can do anything for you.

Worked in an area with a lot of lightning, so a lot of fried computers. Called dell for a machine that wouldn't post, which did the post beep code for "dead motherboard" whenever I turned it on. Had to go through ridiculous crap from Dell ("What does it say on the screen?" "NOTHING. It WONT POST" "Is it plugged in?" "It's BEEPING, isn't it?")...Good hour and a half of my life wasted.

Called Gateway with a blown power supply and a (suspected) blown motherboard. I got the guy on the phone, and said, "It's either a blown power supply or a power supply and a motherboard" and they shipped 'em both out to me, and told me to ship back the motherboard if I didn't need it. I did need it, shipped back both of the bad parts, and heard nothing else about it.

Obviously it's just anecdotal, but I had a lot better experience with Gateway...Mind you I've dealt with Dell a lot more often, but it's never any better, and don't tell me "Gold Service" I've dealt with standard, silver, AND gold service, and they all suck.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[tompaulco]

I was in charge of PC buying for a trading firm back in 1994. Well, I was in charge, but the know-it-all manager overrode my recommendation of Zeos, and insisted on Gateway, which I knew to be poor quality and poor service. Here is the result (pasted from my whining on USENET):

We have purchased 9 Gateways. 7 were 486's and 2 were Pentiums. Here is a list of the problems which have occurred.

The chip fan in one of the Pentiums went out. Gateway sent a replacement. It took only about half an hour to have tech-support place the order.

The video card in a 486 went bad. Gateway wanted to send us upgraded driver software, but I surmised that the card was bad because it had been working. Plus I tried it in another machine. Gateway sent us a replacement. We had to ship the original back to them at our expense. It took about half an hour to for the process.

The chip fan in the other Pentium went out. Gateway sent a replacement. It took only about half an hour to have tech-support place the order.

A 15" monitor went bad on one of the 486's. Tech support was difficult to reach. The recording would tell me to call again later. There was no option for staying on the line. After two days, I was able to get support, and they sent a new monitor. We had to ship the old one back at our cost.

Another 15" monitor went bad on one of the 486's. Same story with tech support. Same symptoms with monitor. They sent another, we had to pay return shipping for the old monitor.

A 17" monitor went bad on one of the 486's. Same symptoms, same awful tech support. Same cost for shipping.

The hard drive on one of the 486's started making an awful whining noise. I didn't bother with tech support because I was able to solve the problem by horizontally mounting the drive.

One of the replacement 15" monitors went bad. Same story. It is starting to take at least three days to get ahold of tech support. They shipped us a new one, we had to pay shipping to return the old one.

Another 17" monitor went bad on one of the 486's. Same symptoms. Tech support was hard to reach again. They also refused to help because the one year warranty had expired. Spent $175 to have the monitor fixed. After two weeks the problem was back.

Two of the 486's we bought came with only 4 mb of memory. They were extremely unstable in windows. They tended to lock up every 30 minutes or so, even if there was not activity. Gateway persuaded us to get 4 more MB of memory. This solved nothing.

So, 9 PC's bought, 11 problems. Total cost for shipping was on the order of $400.00 . Now we buy Dell. We bought two. One had a bad monitor. They sent a replacement and there was no charge.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Spleen]

I work for a college, and we jumped off the gateway ship less then 2 years ago. We feared they wouldn't survive long enough to service our warranty. We still have some 2 year+ old gateway machines around here, still under warranty. We just fill out a form they gave us and email it in. Parts arrive usually within 2 business days. I can't complain about that.

But I'm not Joe HomeComputer either, different markets get different results.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

An unbiased review from one of the best in the business.

Re:Gateway after sales service sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the machine (the 3200 specifically) has decent specs for its time, even if the exterior says "cheap PC laptop with lame branding as an attempted improvement".

Athlon64, decent display resolution, Gbit ethernet, 802g wireless.

..and nothing of value was lost...

[RLiegh]

Seriously, Gateway has always made really crappy computers. Compaq and Gateway are two brands I've always gotten burned on (weird, non upgradeable components that basically mean your box is worthless after a couple of years).

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Seriously, Gateway has always made really crappy computers.

I've never purchased a Gateway, but I do follow the trends in reliability, price, performance, and support from major vendors. Objectively, Gateway has not "always" made crappy computers. Instead they followed a common trend in computer manufacturing/sales. Within the first few years they made quality machines and had excellent support, both better than average for the price. Then, when they had a reputation and brand, the company executives cashed it in for quick profit by selling machines made more cheaply and poorly and counting on their reputation to get people to buy. The exact same thing happened with Alienware about a year before Dell bought them.

Sometimes at a later date a company can reverse course to some degree. Dell's laptops, for example, have gained in quality and reliability over the last few years and are no longer the cheapest junk they can assemble using whatever is inexpensive today. Usually, however, with enough customers pissed off and vowing never to buy crap from Brand X again, it makes more sense in business to simply start Brand Y and count on consumers do not do any homework or even look at consumer reports instead of the TV ad where the guy says its a good deal.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[sharky611aol.com]

Not so. My first three computers (circa 1992, 95, and 98) were all Gateways and all excellent machines that I had very few problems with. And on the rare occasions where I had problems, their service department was top-notch. You could call and speak to someone who spoke English, was knowledgeable and friendly.

This all changed about 8-20 years ago. I'm not sure if they just lost their way, had to cut too many corners to try and compete with Dell or just got too big for their britches, but it's simply not the same company it was back then. I have a Gateway laptop now that my med school supplies us all with, and it is the most horrid, evil machine I have ever had to deal with. Maybe Acer can turn them around, but I doubt it.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[morgan_greywolf]

Not always. Some of us remember them from their days of 'Computers from Iowa???" ads in Computer Shopper. Ted Waite used to build custom-build PC boxes using standard motherboards and standard cases out of his grandmother's barn in Iowa and sell them in the direct channel.

One day they transformed into a Dell-style manufacturing operation and have never been the same since, of course.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[freedomlinux]

Gateway and Compaq have a tendency to suffer from poor quality, but I can only be expected from such bargain products.
I must admit that I have used several Gateway desktops and notebooks (including the MA6 Centrino Duo 15" notebook I am using now), but only because they are provided by the state university system, which is bound by law to purchase the computer with the lowest feasible price.
People who want a computer that doesn't need to be replaced every year are advised to seek a different manufacturer. My 7-month old MA6 already suffers from severe case discoloration and a degrading keyboard.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[webrunner]

[blockquote]My first three computers (circa 1992, 95, and 98) .... This all changed about 8-20 years ago [/blockquote]

So, it was good between 92 and 98, but bad between 87 and 99?

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[OldeTimeGeek]

Um, not really. My first two Intel-based computers were Gateways and I had nothing but good luck with them. I also found nothing particularly proprietary on them (unlike Compaq). I upgraded memory, disk, cards and even processors and never had any problem with it.

My first one ran for over five years before the power supply finally gave out. I decided it was time to build one myself, so I gave it to a co-worker for his kids to play with. He replaced the power supply and it worked for another three years before finally giving up the ghost. I think it might have been due to the 4- and 6-year olds trying to put interesting things into the drives or trying to hot-insert an EISA card, but I may be wrong...

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[massysett]

weird, non upgradeable components that basically mean your box is worthless after a couple of years

That's true for Dells too, which has me wondering if it is true for all systems from vendors of any size.

I had a Dell desktop. The motherboard was made just for Dell. The motherboard connectors for the USB, front-panel sound, hard-disk LED, etc. were all non-standard. Instead of having separate little pinouts and wires for each one, the system used a single ribbon cable to connect all these ports and LEDs to the case. So, forget about getting a replacement mobo from anyone but Dell.

Similarly, the power supply was nonstandard. A standard ATX power supply has a power switch on the back; a Dell PSU does not. This would not be a terribly big deal, but the case does not have a cutout for a power switch on the PSU, making it impossible to put anything but a Dell PSU in there.

I used to curse Dell for this. Then I built my own system. The case has at least a dozen wires coming out of it--power LED, power switch, reset switch, USB front panel, front-panel audio, etc. All these connect to various places on the mobo. It would be pointless for Dell factory workers to plug in a dozen little wires when they can just get their own, custom-made ribbon cable. That's one less opportunity for the factory worker to screw up. Then, consider the power supply. You and I both know to check that switch on the back of the standard PSU. But the average computer user won't know that. His kid will flip it off, then he'll call Dell and say his computer is busted. Tech support will have to go through one more step on the phone, and for what? So geeks like you and I won't complain that the PSU is non-standard?

Don't get me wrong, I would never buy another Dell desktop. But I think the parts are nonstandard for good reason. They don't seem to make things nonstandard just for the sake of making them nonstandard--for instance, hard drives and optical drives are perfectly standard on Dell machines and readily replaced. If Dells, Compaqs, and Gateways all have nonstandard parts, it's probably a safe bet that any big vendor uses nonstandard parts--and for the same good reasons.

The only cure I can think of is to change standards like ATX so that PSUs have no switch and so that everyone is shoehorned into the same ribbon cable--a cure that's worse than the disease. For now, those who know can just stick to Newegg. Everybody wins.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[jvin248]

I repair pc's.. at the end of the 90's I had example boxes from Gateway, Dell, Compaq, and others that were identical except for the cases and the burned-in bios. Most notable was the common Intel motherboard. So the "quality" was practically the same.

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[Bluesman]

"but the case does not have a cutout for a power switch on the PSU, making it impossible to put anything but a Dell PSU in there."

What kind of geek are you? Impossible? Psh. Impossible if you don't have five minutes and a Dremel. :-)

Re:..and nothing of value was lost...

[adolf]

It seems to me that there should be a fairly wide market for Dell conversion cables.

My wife has a Dell Dimension with a rather nice, easy-to-work-on case, but the 2GHz P4 it has is showing its age. A cable kit with a male header like a Dell motherboard connected to a bunch of .010 pin sockets, as supplied on every other ATX case in the world, would fix this problem forever. It'd then be trivial to mount any micro-ATX board, and have all of the LEDs, buttons, and jacks work.

Surely someone must make such a thing (and if they were just slightly less evil, it would be available directly from Dell).

Acer buying anything?

[bstorer]

Amazing. Considering the Acers I've used, it's shocking that they're still around, let alone capable of buying another company!

Re:Acer buying anything?

[bilbravo]

My wife and I bought an Acer laptop at a Black Friday sale almost 2 years ago (2 years this November). Aside from one issue with the screen cable in the hinge coming loose (which was fixed under warranty and returned in less than 6 business days) I have had no issues with the machine. I should add that I am pretty sure the hinge issue was due to having it in the trunk of my car with no case. Stupid, I know.

emachines

[SolusSD]

hmm.. since emachines merged with gateway, what does this mean for emachines? I'm a bit surprised that gateway could be bought for $710 million.

Re:emachines

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit. I'm surprised they got $710 million.

Wonderful news

[Stanistani]

They have the potential to be the next Packard Bell.

Re:Wonderful news

[Melanie1001]

The wild part is - Gateway has been looking into buying Packard Bell, as has Lenovo

From the article:

"Acer's acquisition deal with Gateway also derails rival Lenovo Group's plans to acquire Packard Bell."

Not only are they looking to become the next one, they want to buy the original!

Re:Wonderful news

[sethstorm]

The wild part is - Gateway has been looking into buying Packard Bell, as has Lenovo Lenovo has dragged the Thinkpad too far down, I'd hate to see what Packard Bell influences would do to it.

Re:Wonderful news

[DaveWick79]

Under the radar of most US consumers, Packard Bell has actually become a fairly reputable manufacturer again in Europe. Last I heard they were putting out fairly good product.

The reason that Gateway and Lenovo are interested in Packard Bell is so they can capture some of the European market without having to go into it starting with nothing.

Re:Wonderful news

[Anonymous Coward]

Thinkpads are still far better than most laptops. If I was in the market for a laptop, I would definitely get a Thinkpad or a MacBook Pro. Both are far better than anything Acer or Dell has to offer. While Lenovo had some problems with their early revisions of the Thinkpad, the current T61 and T61p models are excellent.

#4 in the world

[charnov]

Acer ranks 4th in the world with revenues around $15 billion. They are the largest vendor in Taiwan. They might shoot up to three with this purchase. Remember that Gateway just bought eMachines, which still has decent sales, and that they are in the process of buying Packard Bell, which still does a good bit in Europe.

Re:#4 in the world

[MBGMorden]

Dang. I certainly didn't know Packard Bell was still around. My first "IBM Compat" was a Packard Bell (486SX 20mhz, 2mb ram, 80mb hard drive). Worked fine for what it was, but if anyone thinks that a Gateway or Dell uses proprietary non-upgradeable stuff, you have NO IDEA how bad Packard Bell was. Non-standard motherboard form factor, non-standard powersupply, non-standard CPU upgrade path (the CPU was SOLDERED onto the board - if you wanted to upgrade you plugged your new CPU into the "extra" CPU socket and jumpered the original one to disabled). Heck the included RAM was even soldered onto the mobo so there was no taking it with you to a new computer. And of course there's 4 RAM slots. Can you just upgrade willy-nilly? No. You had to fill all 4 slots to make any of them work.

Amazingly I did end up upgrading that computer just a bit - added an internal 14.4k modem, took the memory from 2mb to 6mb, added a sound card and CD-Rom "multimedia kit", and upgraded the CPU to a 485DX 75Mhz using an "overdrive" chip. It got replaced when Windows 95 came out and it couldn't quite handle it (nor could it be easily made to). It's strange but back then Windows 95 seemed like such an advanced and new thing compared to 3.1 :).

Unfortunately, people have seen this before w/ IBM

[sethstorm]

There's nowhere to go but up short of scraping the bottom - compared to Lenovo that wants to drag the last well-made laptop down a few notches.

As a former Acer reseller

[CodeShark]

What most people don't realize is that for years Acer was one of the largest sources for COMPONENTS, not finished systems -- so they tend to weed out poor components first, resulting in better systems at the end of the assembly chain.

So [as a former Acer reseller / small business consultant who moved more into data engineering and away from hardware by choice, not necessity] I would have to say that "this figures". Why? Because I could always upgrade the Acer machines I bought/sold to my clients, and in all of the sites I ever sold to and supported I think I had one machine failure before "end of cycle", i.e., about 3 years later when the cost benefit ratio for a new machine becomes higher than the cost of maintaining an old one. Versus the Gateway, Packard Bell, or even Dell reputation for crap service.

Hmmm. I wonder if this might actually make Gateway stock worth *something* again....

Re:As a former Acer reseller

[deniable]

I've always hated their desktops. I had a lot of trouble, but then most of the low-end consumer PCs aren't a lot of fun.

They do make reasonably good and damn cheap notebooks. My notebook, when I actually use it, is an Acer.

Re:As a former Acer reseller

[Anonymous Coward]

What most people don't realize is that for years Acer was one of the largest sources for COMPONENTS, not finished systems -- so they tend to weed out poor components first, resulting in better systems at the end of the assembly chain.

Just to add a "me too"... Acer cases, modems, and CD-ROMS were the cat's pajamas back in '99.

The cases were solidly built with a good P/S and awesome internal access, the modems worked very well (great interop, quick handshake, and few drops), and the 50x Acer CD-ROM was a smooth as silk.

What the?

[JCSoRocks]

lol UGH, Packard Bell. I can't believe that Acer has more sales than Gateway. I've never thought of them as a major PC vendor. As for Gateway... ahhh I used to love them. I've owned three of them actually. Alas, I too have been burned by the proprietary hardware and their support isn't quite what it used to be. Reliability was the final straw for me though... I've seen too many Gateway laptops give up the ghost for me to stick with them.

$710 Million

[njfuzzy]

I know for sure that Apple has billions of cash in the bank (well, liqued assets in general). How can it be that the fourth biggest by market share could easily buy the third? Has Gateway been selling machines at a loss? heh.

Another way to get customers...

[juniorbird]

This is a clever purchase in that it gets Acer access to a bunch of customers who might never have considered it, but I'm tempted to think that they could've gotten the same customers just by having innovative designs.

Re:Another way to get customers...

[Archangel Michael]

"bunch of customers who might never have considered it"

All 17 of them???

Gateway had some nice machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Within the last 6-8 months gateway had managed to start making some nice laptops again. In June when I was looking for a new laptop no one had what I wanted. Gateway had a cheap base laptop where you could customize almost everything and I ended up with what I wanted at a good price. Total time from order, build and arrival was 4 days. It's too bad to see Acer buy them.

Dinosaurs mating...

[jht]

This takes two companies with minimal brand equity and merges them to provide better buying power and a lower cost of goods. The fact that Gateway was worth only $710 million despite being the third-largest vendor here in the US should say something right there. And it's not good.

Market Cap of some major US PC vendors:
HP 125.68B
Apple 115.8B
Dell 61.63B
Gateway 676.29M

See an interesting trend? Gateway would be pocket change to any of those bigger companies. Basically, they died in retail, were taken over from within by E-Machines (even though Gateway bought E-Machines, the execs from E-Machines wound up in charge - just like when NeXT was bought by Apple) and stabilized just enough to turn into the company into bait for Acer.

Goodbye, Gateway...

Re:Dinosaurs mating...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and would you like to apply a similar comparison to OSes? Goodbye, Linux...

Re:Dinosaurs mating...

[Rinikusu]

For me, the interesting thing is that eMachines and Gateways are actually pretty nice computers these days. Yeah, they're cheap, but I've not hesitated in recommending them to various friends who've had nothing but good things out of them. These make for some great little beater boxes and I've even pondered picking up one of their Athlon 64 dual core machines because for the money, I just can't beat it unless I really want to build my own. And lately, I haven't wanted to do that. :P

E-Machines seemed to be what turned Gateway around, somewhat, from the immediate "OMG GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" to some semblence of sanity. Howevever, I also wonder if eMachines pulled a Hyundai with their abyssmal initial offerings and no one was willing to give them a chance afterwards (for me, they started turning it around with the m6805 laptops...).

Re:Dinosaurs mating...

[vistic]

"just like when NeXT was bought by Apple"

Did any other NeXT management end up in charge at Apple other than Steve Jobs?

Re:Dinosaurs mating...

[jht]

A few NeXT alumni that either are or were Apple executives:

Avie Tevanian - Past Senior VP of Software Engineering, primary architect of Mac OS X/NeXTstep
Bertrand Serlet - Senior VP of Software Engineering, Avie's successor
Sina Tamaddon - VP of Applications
Jon Rubinstein - former VP of hardware development

Basically, when Steve took over within a short time virtually all the Apple folks who Steve didn't want around were sent packing and replaced by NeXT folks. They pretty much took over Apple from within.

dear gateway haters

[circletimessquare]

gateway isn't that bad. what always attracted me too them was products i couldn't get anywhere else (like the pre-windows excellent gateway nomad subnotebook)

so lately, that has been the gateway tablet (heavy, but cheap... go ahead, find me something cheaper and prove me wrong, you can't)

it's fun to play civ4 on a sub-$1000 tablet pc, as many a curious onlooker can attest to. made possible by gateway

thank you gateway

Re:dear gateway haters

[Nimey]

You haven't dealt with Gateway customer "support", I see.

Re:dear gateway haters

[jfbilodeau]

I agree with the previous post. I'm a developer and trainer and I need to run Eclipse, JBoss, BEA Weblogic and other heavy apps (Including NWN ;)). I'm writing this from a inexpensive, two year old Gateway laptop (MX6440) running Feisty. I like the laptop so much, that even being two years old behind in technology, I have no desire to upgrade.

No, I don't work for Gateway or anything like this. I'm just a customer who is surprisingly satisfied with his laptop. I would consider Gateway for my next purchase.

J-F

Re:dear gateway haters

[that IT girl]

And who could forget those sexy cow spots?

Re:dear gateway haters

[ubergamer1337]

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/compute r_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category= notebooks&a1=Usage&v1=Travel%2Fmobility&series_nam e=tx1000z_series Tablet PC by HP who's features are better then many much more expensive tablets. 1280x800 resolution (most tablets are still! at 1024x768) descrete NVIDIA graphics card instead of integrated and a bunch of other things, for 950$

No,

[everphilski]

they'd need to add Packard Bell to create the Unholy Trinity. then, the suckiest computer ever could be conceived.

Re:No,

[Wdomburg]

Erm, they are. Gateway announced they were exercising their right of first refusal to block Lenovo from buying them. So you'll have Acer, Gateway, eMachines and Packard Bell all under single ownership.

I can't complain

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad I bought that cheap GTW stock a few months ago. Rumors have been circulating for a while that Acer was gonna buy them, but I had my doubts. Would've liked to see the stock go up a little first, but I can't really complain at +50% since Friday.

Gateway bought on spot markets

[gelfling]

Gateway - pre eMachines achieved their low costs by buying everything on spot markets. So today's PC's wasn't the same as yesterday's or tomorrows. What you got was what they managed to source at that single moment. This made support damn near impossible. And of course QA was terrible. What the guys at eMachines did was deploy only a small handful of models at a time and they were all standard and compliant. I rather like by eMachines boxes and I hope they continue.

They are still in business?

[bmomjian]

I didn't realize either company was still around.

I don't know if you know this but....

[Chineseyes]

I don't know if you know this but Acer is HUGE in Asia.

Re:I don't know if you know this but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not here in Japan.

Re:I don't know if you know this but....

[belgar]

I don't know if you know this, but *I'm* HUGE in Japan.

Re:I don't know if you know this but....

[jamar0303]

That's a given- Japanese companies are always pushing out faster, better, smaller, cooler, or Hello Kittier laptops there (that's why I import from there); it's not easy for foreign companies to push into such a market.

Ah, brings back memories of Computer Shopper...

[maillemaker]

I used to relish the old Computer Shopper magazine, back when it was the size of a phone book. In the middle thereabouts was always a multi-page spread for Gateway. They used to be about the cheapest mainstream source for PCs and I used their ads as a benchmark for what the going price was for things.

Re:Ah, brings back memories of Computer Shopper...

[hal9035]

great memories....... but, 2 words, back cover.

Brand inversion

[zdzichu]

Huh? What's next, Fujitsu-Siemens buying Dell? Or Packard Bell buying HP?
It pretty funny when company generally known for producing inferior products buys company producing higher quality stuff. But it happens. Apple, maker of punny Xservers and gadgets could easily buy Sun Microsystems with their powerful 16-Opteron cores servers and massively multithreaded CPUs.

Re:Brand inversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Compaq DID buy Digital.

Lenovo

[Anonymous Coward]

Word on the street is that Lenovo are also bidding the same amount.

Buying a brand

[athloi]

Old relationship: Acer builds computers, Gateway rebrands them, and then trashes its reputation by poor service

New relationship: Acer builds and sells computers as Gateway, avoids trashing its relationship to the same degree by poor service, ???->profit.

It's an incremental upgrade for the consumer. The Gateway brand is still valuable because it's recognized and most people don't think of it as terrible, not in the least part because most people have had problems with their better-rated (Dell, Compaq) brands. The same is true of eMachines and Packard Bell, at least in Europe. Acer's moving ahead but the question is whether they can fix their own spotty performance.

Re:Buying a brand

[ShadowsHawk]

Acer's customer support is TERRIBLE. I purchased a laptop two days ago only to discover that the touchpad was broken. I eventually found a contact number on a forum. The rep flat out refused to issue a RMA until I had completed a wipe/reload, so I eventually returned to the store as a defective item.

Obviously, price beats quality every time

[LittleRunningGag]

Acer has the absolute worst notebook warranty service of any company. Gateway / eMachines has the second worst. Just goes to show you that price beats quality every time.

Re:Obviously, price beats quality every time

[doombob]

Note: I work for Acer resellers. Let me guess, you had an Aspire. I will agree that every company that sells computers has an AWFUL retail division or area that sells "Home" PCs - Acer is no exception. But, I've had very few problems with TravelMates and the 3-yr extended warranty that you can purchase with it. We sold a laptop with a Dr. Pepper spilled on it - keyboard and MB replaced no questions asked. We also had an Acer laptop sold 10 years ago that is still in working order - heavy duty user (he's a writer). Of course this is anecdotal, but I've had great experiences with Acer when it comes to their "business grade" systems like TravelMates, Veritons, and AcerPower machines.

Re:Obviously, price beats quality every time

[Dogtanian]

We sold a laptop with a Dr. Pepper spilled on it I wouldn't be very impressed if I bought a laptop which had Dr Pepper spilled on it...

Re:Obviously, price beats quality every time

[bilbravo]

My wife has an Acer, which we sent back for warranty work onthe hinge/monitor cable and received it (repaired, no issues since) in about 6 business days. Have had no other issues with the laptop (Aspire 5120) since the hinge issue.

Re:Obviously, price beats quality every time

[popeye44]

I'm sure you are basing that on personal experience. However let me respond by saying May 28th I had a laptop with a bad heatsink-fan I called them and had an RMA for it in 15min. I have gold support at Dell and rarely do I ever receive that quick of a call/solution. Secondly my cousin who's laptop it is, was able to upgrade her warranty for 2 more years for 100.00 While this might not be cheap the cheapest I found that heatsink/fan was 65.00 According to their site the warranty extension was supposedly only available in the first month after you purchased laptop. She called and was assured she would be covered if she wanted to purchase it. All that being said my experience with Acer has been good and I was able to talk to WELL TRAINED indian techs. Very good english and good understanding of what I said. I have more faith in them now than I once did for a 399.00 laptop purchase. If they treat everyone like they did us it would appear they at least care a wee-bit.

Re:Obviously, price beats quality every time

[LittleRunningGag]

Sorry, I forgot to clarify that I work in a computer repair shop for a Best Buy spin off. Every other manufacturer will allow us to send the customer's stuff away for them. Best Buy had to bully Acer into paying the shipping for customers (and it only works for Best Buy customers). Acer has the lowest overhead in North America for a reason. Its because they cut as many corners as they can.

Share Price

[necro81]

It is very interesting to look at the Gateway's share price history - as the summary suggests. Stock symbol GTW. Click on the 10 year view to see that, at the height of the dot-com days, it was trading at $60-$80. Since the bubble has burst, it has been steadily been below $10. Today at $1.80.

2 things

[kilgor3]

Are they outsourcing the jobs? and I hear a lot of Gateway bashing here. It's understandable, but 8 years ago I bought a gateway. It FINALLY died about 2 weeks ago. This computer handled being on almost everyday, over 150 linux installs a few windows installs and has NEVER been cleaned out with a vacuum or anything. It's dirty as hell and I'm affraid to open it to fix the damn thing. I primarily used this computer for 2 things; 1) Testing all the latest linux distros 2) Downloading my pr0n, warez and music. I think it would still work if I popped another hard drive in. So all in all I had an AMAZING Gateway experience. I wouldn't buy another pre-made PC now that I use laptops and build my own PCs. I needed the Gateway for school at the time and didn't have the time to build my own.

Re:2 things

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm viewing and responding to /. using a Gateway GP6-300 that I bought in May, 1998. I've upgraded the memory, disk, CD drive, and OS (I'm running Windows XP Home now), but have had next-to-zero problems. (I did wear out the keyboard, but replaced that one with another for $9.95.) I bought a Dell for my next computer, but I've absolutely no complaints about the Gateway.

Acer is Now Doomed

[dammy]

Let us not forget that Acer's purchase of Gateway will more then likely include Amiga Developement LLC which is the fileholder for Amiga patents. So Acer will now hold all licensing of those patents to Amiga Inc which is in a death match against Hyperion who was doing OS4. Yes, I know, Amiga Inc bought the code, the trademarks, existing hardware but not the patents. Gateway only licensed that to Amiga Inc.

So the Amiga curse is in full speed and Acer is now doomed.

dammy
http://www.aros.org/
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-wawdce/case _no-2:2007cv00631/case_id-143245/

Re:Acer is Now Doomed

[Perp Atuitie]

I was wondering about the Ami connection. Of course in a civilized country any outfit that fucked up its Amiga holdings as grotesquely as Gateway should not be allowed to keep them. Patents are supposed to be for innovation, not destruction. Anyway, somehow it's hard to imagine that Acer will have any interest in the Amiga stuff, and there's not much visible commercial value to the patents. Maybe Ami will get open-sourced at last, only a few decades too late. PS -- how does the parent deserve a troll rating? Dump this mod.

Re:Acer is Now Doomed

[dammy]

Acer will be getting new patents that Gateway has filed via Amiga Developement LLC. Most of the old C= patents are expiring in the next year or two or already have expired. Acer/Gateway/AmigaDevelopement do not have any AOS source code, that is what AI bought, along with the logos and physical hardware inventories. Only person who can open source AOS is Pentti Kouri since it was his companies that bought Amiga Inc from Gateway.

Besides, who needs AOS open source when there is http://www.aros.org/?

Packard Bell

[Crazy Taco]

I must be one of the only customers who never had a problem with Packard Bell. Are they really as bad as people claim they were? Our family bought several Packard Bell computers, and none of them ever had a problem. We eventually got rid of some of them as we upgraded, but we still have a 150 Mhz box that still runs to this day on 100% original hardware. Not one thing has ever failed, and I can't say that about any of the HP, Toshiba or Dell computers I have bought. For that matter, I don't even think I can say that about the computers I've built. At some point in their history Packard Bell must have been doing some things right.

Re:Packard Bell

[everphilski]

I had one of those Pentium 90's with that division bug ... I don't attribute any of those woes to Packard Bell, they did replace the processor, but we had nothing but trouble with the computer. The tech actually got pissed at me on his fifth or sixth visit (my parents were wise to purchase the service plan), he claimed I was intentionally screwing around with the motherboard (I wasn't) ... we had several motherboard failures and expansion card failures.

Re:Packard Bell

[_anomaly_]

I must be one of the only customers who never had a problem with Packard Bell

You just might be... after brushing up on the history of Packard Bell on Wikipedia, I found that PC World ranked their computers from '86-'96 the worst PCs of all time.

I also found out that they had no relation to HP, as I had previously thought...

Re:Packard Bell

[ncc74656]

We eventually got rid of some of them as we upgraded, but we still have a 150 Mhz box that still runs to this day on 100% original hardware. Not one thing has ever failed, and I can't say that about any of the HP, Toshiba or Dell computers I have bought.

My parents had a 166-MHz Packard Bell that was still running when I gave them one of my hand-me-downs (it was excess to my needs, and a fair bit faster). I still have the monitor (with speakers that screwed into the sides) from that system on my workbench.

By the time I started dealing with them in the mid-'90s, they usually didn't seem substantially better or worse than the competition. They had some weird ideas from time to time (one model had 1.2-GB and 850-MB hard drives combined by a combination of the system BIOS and custom firmware in the drives to appear as a single 2-GB drive, and there were those weird L-shaped desktops that you were supposed to shove into a corner), but I didn't have a harder time working on them than any other machine out there.

Juding by your figures, Apple looks real good.....

[King_TJ]

I find it interesting that despite the prevailing mentality that Apple is a "niche market player" - they've got such a strong market cap, with no signs of it declining.

Nay-sayers will scream that "It's only because they sold tons of iPods!", but don't forget that they're not all THAT far from matching HP's market cap, and Apple doesn't even manufacture their own printers OR scanners anymore! (On the other hand, HP did license the iPod from Apple for a while!)

Gateway is gone...

[bomanbot]

...finally somebody thought of the cows! ;-)

Re:Gateway is gone...

[antdude]

Does that mean those cows will be slaughtered? :P

Stock picking is a loosers game

[jaypaulw]

those of us that purchased Gateway shares

What kind of person buys individual company shares?

Re:Stock picking is a loosers game

[dextromulous]

Maybe someone who knows how to spell "loser." ;-)

Re:Stock picking is a loosers game

[jaypaulw]

Well done.

Re:Stock picking is a loosers game

[SMS_Design]

Let me guess.. Your investment account manager told you this, didn't he? I'm sure he had some excellent commission-paying funds that he could get you hooked up with that were MUCH better investments.


- A guy whose investments are pulling 25-30% annual yield and have been for years.

ACER Amiga?

[gravy.jones]

Present: Gateway 2000 currently owns the Amiga line of computers.
After purchage, ACER owns the Amiga line of computers
Future: ACER Amiga

Re:ACER Amiga?

[planetralph]

Not true, according to Wikipedia Gateway sold the Amiga brand in 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga Ralph

Ponytail Dude

[jollyreaper]

Who here lost all (or at least all remaining) faith in Gateway after they started doing commercials with the ponytail dude who was their CEO? That guy just screamed "Don't trust me!" in a way I haven't felt since the marketing weasel left my company.

Apple should have done this

[JudgeFurious]

Seriously, Apple buys Gateway and there is great buzz. Gateway may not have the greatest reputation at the moment but a lot of people out there owned a Gateway computer at one point or another. They didn't always suck.

  So Apple goes into the PC business selling Windows boxes as Gateway and works on improving the Gateway reputation. Then they make Gateway computers the only "PC's" that you can order OSX on. Now people who just wouldn't buy a Mac no matter what can buy a PC running a rebranded OSX (an edition with references to Apple and Macintosh removed, call it PCosX maybe) and that's how they expand the OSX user base.

  Apple never really seems to have their heart in entry level Macs. Gateway could have given them a PC business to play with along with an entry level line of machines that they could make headway in market share on. It would be a fine line to walk to keep from cannibalizing Mac sales but they've proven pretty adept at doing that kind of thing over the years.

Re:Apple should have done this

[GreatBunzinni]

Apple already bases its entire product line on Intel x86 systems, i.e., IBM PC compatible, i.e., PCs. Why should apple buy some company just to be able to do the exact same thing that it is already doing for the past year or so?

Re:Apple should have done this

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone

Re:Apple should have done this

[Machtyn]

(an edition with references to Apple and Macintosh removed, call it PCosX maybe)

Why not name it P SinX/TanX?

Boy, this could turn out badly.

Re:Apple should have done this

[JudgeFurious]

There are a lot of PC users who won't touch a Mac regardless of that fact and I know I've tried to convince a few of them that the new Macs are just as much PC's as the PC they want to buy. It makes no difference to them. They won't buy the Mac even if it does run Windows. They know Gateway is a PC. They probably owned one or used one at work at some point or another.

  Apart from that it would give Apple an entry level line. The prices on the Gateways would stay low and most of them wouldn't be purchased with a copy of OSX. Most would be Windows boxes. Some for an additional cost would also come with OSX instead of or in addition to WindowsXP.

Re:Apple should have done this

[Moochman]

Apple already bases its entire product line on Intel x86 systems, i.e., IBM PC compatible, i.e., PCs. Why should apple buy some company just to be able to do the exact same thing that it is already doing for the past year or so?

Not the exact same thing; they don't make anything like the standard, cheap PC mid-tower that allows near-complete upgradeability. I think a lot of the people who stay away from Macs are less driven away by the Mac OS as they are by the fact that they will never be able to upgrade their computer (unless they shell out the big bucks for a Mac Pro).

Never mind that many of the said people are still rather clueless computer users who will lose any price advantage based on the hundreds of dollars shelled out for commercial software (CD/DVD suite, Antivirus, etc), will lose any performance advantage by installing millions of memory-resident Windows apps, and will likely spend many hours and dollars on computer technicians to clean out viruses and perform said hardware upgrades, while they could have just bought a Mac mini and replaced the whole damn thing when they want a speed boost...

Don't believe the hype...

[Chineseyes]

Don't believe the hype the prostitutes say that to all foreigners.

Awesome. So now...

[Anonymous Coward]

...there will be only ONE big company turning out crappy computers, not two. I wouldn't take either brand for free. Seriously. A family member once worked at Acer, in the executive office, and told us the story about how one of their C*O's refused to use an Acer at home.

ACER Amiga? Not bloody likely!

[Dogtanian]

Future: ACER Amiga More likely; after a couple of years, someone at Acer notices that a small but noticable proportion of questions to their bemused enquiries staff are about these "Amiga" computers. They twig what it's about, and mention it in passing to their boss. Eventually they realise that they have the rights to this "Amiga" thing.

A year or so later, Acer have figured out that the name has some residual nostalgia value. They whore out the Amiga brand to any company willing to pay enough to use it on some random piece of generic computer hardware.

Re:ACER Amiga? Not bloody likely!

[mdwh2]

Probably more likely, but it'd still be an ACER Amiga, by definition. After all, when Apple ditched classic MacOS and have gradually moved towards industry standard components, they still kept the "Mac" brand. Indeed, I'd rather see a new Amiga that was a modern machine branded Amiga, than someone wheeling out a 15-year-old resurrected Amiga.

Re:ACER Amiga? Not bloody likely!

[Dogtanian]

Probably more likely, but it'd still be an ACER Amiga, by definition. Well, legally that's correct; if Acer had the rights to the Amiga name (*), they could sell grade "B" turnips and other root vegetables as the "ACER Amiga".

After all, when Apple ditched classic MacOS and have gradually moved towards industry standard components, they still kept the "Mac" brand. They were still continuations of the Mac computer line at some level.

Indeed, I'd rather see a new Amiga that was a modern machine branded Amiga, than someone wheeling out a 15-year-old resurrected Amiga. Uh, you do realise that what I was talking about was some company looking to make a quick buck slapping the Amiga name on *any* old piece of hardware, from a generic Windows PC to a cheap USB pen drive. By definition, as you say, these would still be "Amigas" if Acer said they were. However, I don't think that this is what most Amiga fans would be after- and unlike the "new" Macintoshes, they'd be Amiga in name only.

Actually, come to think of it, I think they've already done this. I've asked at least twice, but I still don't know what Amiga Anywhere (some built-on-mobile-Java architecture thing) has to do with the original Amiga beyond the name.

Gateway vs Apple stores

[peter303]

I was a little fearful of Apple getting into the store business after Gateway failed. However Apple built up slowly. Plus Apple stores can be fun. I only felt like visiting a Gateway once, where I go back to Apple stores every few months to look at the new stuff (an sneak in an email now and then).

Re:Gateway vs Apple stores

[jcr]

I was a little fearful of Apple getting into the store business after Gateway failed.

I had my doubts about Apple retail until the first time I saw one of the stores. Then, I met Ron Johnson, and had a chance to hear him speak to a group of recently-hired Apple employees. The man knows things about how to sell stuff in stores that I had no idea there was to know. When Apple decided to go for retail, they did a serious search to find the best possible VP to lead that group, and they certainly got him.

-jcr

Gateway is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

I use to work for gateway tech support. People would get in trouble for putting in the system, replacing crap with crap. Literally! They take as many shortcuts as possible and release inferior hardware that doesn't even work, then wonder why customers get upset when they have to replace their modem every 6 months. The mantra? Replace crap with crap till the warranty runs out.

I miss the Gateway Handbook!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gateway Handbook was probably Gateway's best computer that they ever made. The circa 1994 Handbook 486 was, and still is, a Linux-compatible computer about the size of a trade paperback or book club edition hardback. I used one of these Handbooks recently to take notes in class; I got a 4.0 GPA when this was used as my notepad. You can use Compact Flash memory with them once you get a Compact-Flash to PCMCIA adaptor; this is probably the best way to install Linux on one of these beasts. DeLi Linux is a modern Linux distribution that can run on one of these classics.

I really wish Gateway continued to make Handbooks after the Handbook 486; it would have been really nice to see a color Handbook, or one using a modern processor, such as a Handbook Core Dual. :)

Since Acer makes computers with about the same form factor as the Handbook, maybe we'll get an Acer Handbook. I can dream.

That's nothing...in MY day...

[AmazingRuss]

..the top of the line machine was a boulder and a hole. It featured one bit of storage, which we would set and clear by heaving the boulder into or out of a hole. Uphill. Both Ways. It never crashed, and booted up instantly.

You kids and your ASICS have it too easy...it's no wonder the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Acer buying Gateway?

[Anonymous Freak]

Isn't that backwards? Wouldn't that be like AOL buying Time Warner, or K-Mart buying Sears, or Mercedes buying Chrysler?

Oh, wait.....

Plus their web-ordering sucked

[schwaang]

Compared to Dell or even HP, the Gateway website was much harder to use when spec'ing out a cheap box. When a big business has poor web-ordering in the year 2007, there's just no way I'm buying anything from them. They either didn't "get" their market, or they only wanted truly brain-dead customers.

(No offense if you, gentle reader, bought one of their systems. Their cardboard boxes with the cow theme were kinda cool.)

Re:Juding by your figures, Apple looks real good..

[jht]

Remember, though - part of what builds stock value is the perceived upside of the company business. Apple is strong because even though their market share is small, their growth is higher than most and they dominate the music player biz and have been expanding with success whenever they go (iPhone, anyone?). HP is driven by their printer business and their services besides PC, and Dell has volume and low costs. Gateway, though, has nothing unique. So analysts look at them and say "meh" - ergo a low valuation despite the sales numbers.

The market is a funny place.

ACER

[zoomshorts]

"But too bad for gateway shareholders who were in at a higher price per share. Anyway, this gives Acer a nationally recognized brand name to use as a vehicle for their products."

Recognised as what? I worked for a company that assembled Acer 'white boxes' using Acer parts.
Acers were running around a 42 percent failure rate using Acer "quality" parts. When the Acer
people were trying to sell us their business, every third word out of the Acer representative's
mouth was 'quality', then to have a 42 percent failure using Acer "quality" parts.

Every Acer I touch is a joke, and I have touched FAR too many of them. ACER is the joke of the
PC world. And Packard Bell, the original company, made decent machines for the time.

I remember

[simontek2]

I remember when working at the Gateway store, we all got the calls they were shutting down the stores, on April first. It was one of those "great" april fools jokes, that was real. I also remember how much trouble I got for repairing a motherboard with bad capactors by just replacing them with new ones. apparently no one knew how to use a soldering iron.

Why on earth would anybody buy gateway?

[walterbyrd]

As I understand it, gateway has no techology, or manufacturing. All gateway does is buy PCs and slap the "gateway" name on them. Furthermore, gateway hasn't been profitable since 2000. And the gateway name doesn't carry any special prestige. No special distribution channels that I know of.

So if you're already a computer seller, what does owning gateway do for you?

Re:Why on earth would anybody buy gateway?

[mp3phish]

Re: distribution channels...

Well, Gateway did just open a manufacturing/staging plant/warehouse in Tennessee. Here they warehouse the laptop chassis and insert the RAM, miniPCI card, and hard drives for quick shipment to US consumers. The cost savings are supposed to be huge and also being located on a major shipping hub in Tennessee gives them a really good distribution channel in the US market.

Now, it just opened up this month into full production, but still, that is a good asset to have. You have to remember, they are also buying their customers and the brand name, which is a distribution channel in itself. They already have agreements with big box retailers like Best Buy, and are successful in them. Plus, more than Gateway, Acer is buying eMachines (don't laff), which is actually a larger division within the company than Gateway. In fact, the "traditional" gateway business is next to nothing right now when compared to the Gateway branded eMachines business.

Plus, they are buying the company for peanuts.

Anonynmity? On the Intarweb? Don't be silly!

[Chas]

They can always subpoena the admins to track down your IP (which I've no doubt the admins can see quite easily, the correlate it to a /. user account).

What? This was perfect execution!

[raehl]

Apparently you've never been to a no-Computer store before. It wouldn't be a very good no-Computer store if it had computers there now, would it?

And Gateway's no-Computer stores succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, selling record numbers of no-Computers!

It's rare that a company can conceive and execute a new strategy like this so successfully. In fact, the Gateway no-Computer stores were SO successful, they even increased the no-Computer sales on the web sales side!

By buying Gateway, Acer is hoping to extend Gateway's no-Computer sales model to also sell no-Servers, along with no-Monitors and no-Projectors.

Sad day

[tweedle100]

I would have been much more excited to hear Gateway was buying and not being bought out. I dealt with Gateway pcs at a university in bulk years ago and thought the package was really presented nice and worked great. I bought and advised folks to buy Gateway. Slowly and sadly I've watched the product become so cheaply presented (loss of gateway stores, burn your own restore disks! and hardly any media (cds) packaged with new stations) that the next station I'd get is HP. I have not seen a lot of Acer and well that just scares me a company that is not really strong in the US is adding Gateway like an accessory. Boooo! Nice knowing you Gateway. Take care in your assimilation.

A Gateway is my best

[armanox]

The two best, most reliable PC's I own are Gateways. Actually, they're identical. Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 256MB RDRAM, 80GB HDD, USB, Firewire, nVidia GeForce 3, Creative SoundBlaster Lives!, and so on. I've also in my possesion a bunch of non-functional Compaqs, several Dells, two Toshiba Laptops (the most physically durable comps I've owned), a few IBMs, one home built, one AST Laptop, and one Packard Bell.

Re:A Gateway is my best

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Individual experience will vary. Did you buy all the machines at the same time for the same price? The point of objectively looking at reliability numbers is to see for a given price or for all prices, what percentage of machines break and brick and what percentage of service calls solve the problem. Several companies publish studies every year. The best of the lot, in my opinion, is Consumer Reports. They're funded by their subscribers and take no money or demo machines from companies, instead buying them as individuals from normal sources and relying upon survey data of consumers. They have a lot more data points than any individual and I generally find their numbers to agree with the numbers we track at work for our purchases. Apple is at the top of their lists, but because they offer no low end machines, that is to be expected. With Apple removed from the listing their overall ratings for desktops for 2006 placed eMachines at #1 with 62% and Gateway at #3 with 54%, making them a little better than average. For laptops Lenovo came in #1 with 69% , Toshiba came in at #2 with 57% and Gateway came in at #6 with 50%.

I'm an investment advisor...

[jaypaulw]

...and I believe that scientific finance pretty much discredits stock picking. I use Dimensional http://www.dfaus.com/philosophy/ which is the best implementation of academic finance out there.

Exciting!

[justinlee37]

Could this mean the end of the infernal beast that is Gateway? Will we no longer be subject to their shoddy assembly-line computers and annoying marketing campaigns?

If only Dell would go down the tubes, too. Then maybe people would have to figure out how to put together their own computers ... it's not that complicated, and you save a huge wad of cash by doing it. Hell, you can even look up a how-to guide online.

The economy would likely benefit if people saved money by working on their own equipment, displacing all of those assembly-line workers and retail tycoons into more productive jobs -- jobs which would become available, eventually, since the money saved would be put into other areas of the economy, creating larger overall markets for other businesses.

Not to mention that the country would probably benefit passively, as a whole, if people were suddenly aware of all the tasks you could apply computers to (as a result of being forced to assemble their own). It would make businesses and gov't agencies in every sphere more optimized.

>_> What, I can dream.

Re:Exciting!

[MemoryDragon]

The main problem here is different, Apple, Acer, Gateway, Dell, HP, they are all brands, thats it, the manufacturing itself is done by some third party OEMs like Asus in asia, and the machines are just manufactured according to the specs of the respective company, so even if Acer has bought gateway, it wont make too much of a difference, the only one probably being a shift in the OEM supplier of the Laptop.

My Memory

[Physician]

My first computer was a Gateway with a 180 mhz Pentium Pro running Windows 95. That was some serious muscle in the day. Because I kept screwing around with various software I had to call tech support fairly often but back then they all spoke English and when the call was over my computer was working again. Once my RAM went bad and they replaced it without question. That's why my second computer and the one I'm still using is also a Gateway.