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."

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: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:..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: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.