Troubled Times at Gateway 152
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece looking at the future of Gateway in the light of the recent announcement of the departure of their CEO. The article revolves around the question: 'Will the sudden departure of Wayne Inouye and a slumping stock price leave the computer maker open to a buyout or takeover?'"
Stupid Cow (Score:1, Interesting)
Probably not. Nobody really cares about Gateway anymore... They aren't doing anything innovative and the only thing they've ever had going for them was that stupid cow.
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2, Insightful)
> anything innovative and the only thing they've ever had going for them was that stupid cow.
There isn't a computer maker in the top ten that is really doing anything innovative anyway it's all copying or refining what has gone on before them before and marketing it as something people will want. If they get that right things fall into place.
Nobody knows gateway exists any more so their marketing is has been.
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is top ten; it's actually sixth in U.S. marketshare, IIRC.
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is a form of innovation in itself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:4, Insightful)
How many patents do Dell, HP, Gateway, etc, get?
Apple tend to innovate more at the package level than the component level. They might make products that other people have done before, but they make the whole package palatable to the purchaser, and thus desirable. They make it look good, work simply and easily, and these are things that PC makers are going to have trouble with as they don't have their own software stack incorporating an OS up through high end applications.
And they do these things with rapid speed. Another respondent says it is just a nicely packaged nano-ITX system. Problem is, nano-ITX is barely available a year after the Mini was released. I think he meant mini-ITX, although the mini's motherboard is smaller than that. Again, the mini is more integrated and more powerful (I guess a 1.5GHz G4 is twice as powerful as a 1.2GHz C3, and that's before SIMD).
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
The mini-itx has been around for several years. I picked up a fan less one in 2002 for a MP3 player in my car. If you wanted a nano, you had to poke around a bit harder. They tend to sell to folks building 'larger' x86 based embedded devic
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
Everything Apple is doing now has been done by somebody else years ago. Usually that somebody else was Apple, but the time or the technology wasn't right. Now the hardware's caught up - they finally have their video store to go with the VOD protot
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm. That reminds me of somebody else, their name starting with an M or something. Can't think of it right off of the top of my head...
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
And some of us still would never buy from them again. After having them mess up some memory and not step up to fix the problem, I wrote them off my vendor list. In this industry, there are always other players, so you have to keep your current customers happy or they'll go elsewhere for solutions.
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
Fast Food (Score:1)
Re:Fast Food (Score:2)
Carly Fiorina left HP a very hurting company and yet she walked out with a golden parachute when everyone else just had paper ones. It is so
Re:Fast Food (Score:2)
HP was in trouble when she came on board, and was in even more trouble when she left. They seem to be turning it around now that she's out of the way. It's really sad that CEOs can do nothing and get paid for it, but it's even worse when they can do real damage and still get a hefty paycheck.
Re:Fast Food (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2, Interesting)
Obligatory Gateway Bashing Story: Back around 1993ish, my boss bought a Gateway 486 laptop. He added a PCMCIA modem which never worked right. After some back and forth with heavily accented (Dakotan) tech-support, he finally go
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
OMG! I just went there to refresh my memory and TH
Re:Stupid Cow (Score:2)
Yeah but you know what they say...Moo' money, moo' problems.
I'll get my coat.
Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:3, Interesting)
We just bought a backup system from them. 2x 2U servers with 12x500GB drives each, plus an autoloader tape system with 75 LTO 800GB tapes. We got the extra warranty et. al. because we're expecting to put the hard drives through their paces... I hope we still get warranty service in 3 years...
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:5, Informative)
How do I know this? After the first two or three, I started to ask: "How was their tech support?" They'd usually answer matter-of-factly, "Oh, they were great. There was this little problem, but they helped me fix it right away."
Sometimes they'd say no, and I'd ask, "Really? You're the first." Then they'd respond with "Oh, well, now that you mention it, there was this problem with the [memory, hard disk, keyboard, missing item, whatever], but they helped me fix it right away."
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:1)
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:1)
This is a lot like what happened in the automotive industry back in the 1
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:2)
When the employees weren't themselves to blame the co
Re:Oh Boy, Oh Boy! (Score:2)
I hate to be negative... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:1)
But just think of the impact on the many computer techs whose livelihood depends on having a steady stream of Gateway computers entering their shops for repair! When Packard-Bell went under, Gateway was there to pick up the slack. Now, they'll just have to rely on HP Pavilions.
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because you don't remember Gateway before they went mega-commerical. Many of us remember Gateway as being the mail-order company that always built PCs to the highest specifications of technology and quality. When everyone else was shipping 2x CDRom drives, Gateway was shipping 4x. When everyone was shipping 4 megs of RAM, Gateway was shipping 16. When everyone else had non-existant technical support, Gateway had excellent service that got your problem taken care of right away.
THAT is the Gateway I remember. The Gateway of today is nothing more than some other megacorp abusing the namesake of a company who knew how to build computers.
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:1)
The Gateway I remember in 1999: PCs with very noisy fans
My overall impression: shaving off every last penny for the bottom line by using the cheapest parts
The Dell I remember in 1991: excellent keyboards
The Dell I remember in 1999: quiet PCs, long before they became popularized
(I might add, they remain quiet after years of use)
My overall impression: cutting costs in mass production / efficient designs, use good quality for the parts that matter
He
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:1, Troll)
I worked as a tech at CompUSA in high school, and we charged double the price per hour to fix Gateways because they were such pieces of shit. This was in the 486 days, right about the time you are talking about.
And the 16 megs of ram bit is total BS too. Gateway, like everybody else, didn't ship machines with 16 megs of ram until Windows 95 came out.
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:2)
Capacitor Curse (Score:2)
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:2)
Re:I hate to be negative... (Score:2)
Purchased a few hundred computers from them for work and 4 for personnal and family use, and they were great.
They use to have far better tech support, better prices and better technology used. Then they decided to grow huge in the consumer market and that did them in.
The other thing they were really good for was when you were purchasing newer technology systems, all other places would place a premium price on them,
At a recent CEO roundtable... (Score:5, Funny)
"I'd butcher the cow and have a barbecque for the shareholders."
This can only be good news for Gateway (Score:2)
Re:At a recent CEO roundtable... (Score:1)
Buyout? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Buyout? (Score:2)
Their customer list is worth something, as are their call center and distribution systems. The interesting thing about a customer list is how to value it. If it's a million happy customers then it's worth a lot. If it's a million unhappy customers then it ain't worth squat.
Happy gateway customers (Score:2)
Their 'service' is pretty dismal. I cant comment on distribution as we no longer include them in our approved vendor list.
Re:Buyout? (Score:2)
Only 1 Choice: Liquidation (Score:3, Interesting)
One unrealistic possibility for Gateway is to focus on the developing countries like China, but companies like Lenovo have the home-court advantage. Lenovo has close relationships with Taiwanese computer-chip manufacturers (who also sell their wares to the Chinese military in Beijing [geocities.com]). Lenovo can also exploit ultra-low-cost labor in China.
How can Gateway compete against Lenovo? Gateway cannot. IBM could not and sold its PC division to Lenovo.
Re:Only 1 Choice: Liquidation (Score:1)
They're a gonner
NX860XL (Score:2)
I wonder if this will make them cheaper or more expensive in the near future....
Can Wayne Inouye Save Gateway? (Score:4, Funny)
Gateway's decline (Score:1)
Re:Gateway's decline (Score:2)
$9M sales, $19M payoff? (Score:4, Interesting)
They paid the CEO $19 and bonuses for one year's work before he bails.
But, probably the real reason why he couldn't make a go of it at Gateway was inteference from Snyder and the rest of the board.
About time! (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe they can borrow Apple's word (Score:1)
Stick a fork into Gateway (Score:1)
Re:Stick a fork into Gateway (Score:2, Funny)
Second time buyers didn't return to Gateway (Score:3, Informative)
An ancedotal story. My mother-in-law wanted a new computer and I offered to build her one. She insisted that she wanted a large company like Gateway standing behind her in case of a problem. I groaned and let her buy from Gateway. The PC had problems out of the box, most noticably skipping when playing audio CD's. Grinning, I told my mother-in-law just to call gateway and they would take care of it. She called and they ran her through the reboot your computer, click this irrelevant non-related thing, then that irrelevant thing. To make a long story short, the CD-ROM drive was defective and Gateway refused to replace it, but gave her a code and 1-800 number to call periodically for more information regarding a fix.
I just laughed, and laughed and laughed. Yep, the big company was standing behind (sic) it's brand new defective product. Soon after than the video card died, but Gateway did replace that after 2 agonizing calls, and then close to the end of the warranty period the monitor died, which was also replaced.
So when it came time to upgrade to a better PC? Did my mother-in-law go back to Gateway? Nope, she called me to come and take care of it.
Gateway had a strong lead and should have spun itself off into a world-class service and support organization. They could have been the first "Geek Squad", but they chose substandard customer service coupled with the cheapest parts available to make margins. Shipping defective monitors around has got to cut into profit margins.
Because of this, everyone has already bought a Gateway and isn't going back for another. I wonder if I could sell a T-Shirt, which read: "Been there, bought that, Got the Cow-Box."
Re:Second time buyers didn't return to Gateway (Score:3, Interesting)
I was working in I.T. for a mid-sized company that was using exclusively Dell, but got irritated at the long hold times just to get parts replaced under warranty, and some billing mistakes they made. So they asked me to consider alternatives. We opted for Toshiba for some of our laptop purchases, and as an experiment, tried Gateway. They had a number of new slim-line desktop PCs out that they were selling through their "business division", pre-loaded with Windows NT 4.
Re:Second time buyers didn't return to Gateway (Score:2)
Retail sales: great! Direct sales: Crap! (Score:2)
Retail sales are mostly AMD-based. They have some very neat looking Athlon 64 X2 desktops these days. (For people who don't custom-build their desktop PCs. Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
Direct sales are 100% Intel. Let's face it, Dell pretty much owns that market.
I had hoped that their CEO could straighten out Gateway like he did eMachines, but now... ug
Gateway has problems (Score:1)
Re:Gateway has problems (Score:2, Informative)
Last year, I bought a laptop from them. ALL their hardware is 100% non-proprietary (i.e. not their own; Pentium M, IPW2200 Wireless, etc)
Is it time for acquiring Gateway ? (Score:2, Interesting)
BR,
~A
Re:Is it time for acquiring Gateway ? (Score:2)
It's up to Google... (Score:2, Funny)
Just the beginning (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, the problem is that the US economy has more debt than it can pay off at face value so this is just the beginning. What will most likely happen is that the fed will monitize some debts in order to prevent massive bankruptcies. But it will make the problem worse, because watering down the value of the money will drive up commodity prices like gas and food, but it likely won't drive up pay. So people will have the same debts, but costs that are several times higher. This will cause more bankruptcies, which will lead to more monitization, which will lead to more bankruptcies and so on in a vicious cycle.
It seems to me that these next few years will be hell. Also, I think the dollar is doomed as a global reserve currency, and I wouldn't be suprised if the dollar ceased to be a currency at all. Put extra money into precious metals.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:2)
That is clearly part of the problem, but the way bigger problem is that the US mentality is based around "cheap". Meaning cheaper products at a faster and faster pace.
Two things happen then:
1. The Quality goes down the drain.
2. Someone else will come along sooner or later and make it even cheaper (see China).
Re:Just the beginning (Score:2)
(obviously you cannot buy your own debt with the money you print)
Sure you can. After all, the bonds are promises to pay in dollars and not gold. Of course don't be suprised if it causes instant inflation and instant dollar dumping. In fact, some have argued that it is already happening. Just as China stopped buying more bonds at auction causing markets to get really nervous, some mysterious account in the Cyamans started buying billions and billions worth of US treasuries at auction.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:2)
Okay, good point, but who do you think is buying all the bonds? The US Government?
Re:Just the beginning (Score:2)
Its fairly obvious you dont read "fat freddies's cat and the furry freak brothers" comics
Dope gets you through times of no money better than money gets you through times of no dope. All good hippies know what.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with debt (Score:2)
Besides H.R. bulls*** rules and a corporate tax system from h*** that strongly discourages innovation with a strong emphasis on short term earnings, it is no wonder that companies are leaving the USA for elsewhere.
Where I live, the local government
A big but risky opportunity (Score:1)
Re:A big but risky opportunity (Score:2)
Re:A big but risky opportunity (Score:2)
Linux at Walmart.com has slipped to four systems with specs so mediocre it scarcely seems worth the trouble to keep them in stock.
The future mass-market PC at retail will be the media oriented Vista or the Mac.
GW service sucks (Score:3, Interesting)
Complaining to customer support got me a cable. Turns out the techs ordered the correct drive both times, but the warehouse was out of IDE hard drives so it failed silently and sent a SATA drive instead.
That said, the techs I chatted with (using their Java client) were professional (a bit too professional, if you know what I mean) and knew their jobs.
I'm not recommending my clients order GW machines for the time being. Our other major vendor for desktop PCs is Dell, and while their techs make me jump through the same hoops to get replacement parts, at least I get the right gorram parts sent to me.
Re:GW service sucks (Score:2)
Fraknly, I don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about.
Re:GW service sucks (Score:2)
Re:GW service sucks (Score:2)
Do you mean, "professional" and "handle" in the sexual prostitution sense? Because otherwise, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
Gateway Had it commin' (Score:2, Insightful)
I know - HP WILL BUY THEM! (Score:3, Funny)
HP will INNOVATE and INVENT the computer of the future! While other clone makers like Dell and IBM have their computers built by third party sweatshops in China, HP will BUY Gateway, and LEAD the world into a technical future of INNOVATION and EXCELLENCE.
RS
ps: if HP *does* buy the rotting carcass of Gateway, I'll laugh so hard...
Re:I know - HP WILL BUY THEM! (Score:2)
HP will INNOVATE and INVENT the computer of the future! While other clone makers like Dell and IBM have their computers built by third party sweatshops in China, HP will BUY Gateway, and LEAD the world into a technical future of INNOVATION and EXCELLENCE.
I don't know if you know this, but after the Compaq merger, HP was the largest computer maker in the world, on and off for a few quarters.
If you ever go look at one of their workstations
Re:I know - HP WILL BUY THEM! (Score:2)
So who the fuck are you? Carly's boy toy? (badoom-tish!)
Seriously, though - you are correct in that *LIMITED* sense re: a few of HP's offerings are worthwhile. HOWEVER: most of their crap IS made by 3rd party crap houses in China. And all the testing you talk about is of ZERO consequence when you're talking about their bread and butter produc
TVs (Score:2)
So if Gateway gets bought out (Score:2)
Amiga and Bankruptcy (Score:2)
I guess the universe will eventually right itself, after all.
Scary accurate prediction from 2003 (Score:3, Insightful)
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/03/23
I've particularly liked the following post:
>> Can Wayne Inouye Save Gateway? No!
>> Like any desk jockey executive, he will kick back, collecting a
>> multi-million dollar salary plus bonuses that will bankrupt the company,
>> and laugh all the way to the bank. Gateway will be kaput by 2006, and that
>> is a generous estimate.
Ohio is a stupid place to start a business (Score:2)
Re:Ohio is a stupid place to start a business (Score:2)
Re:BTX? (Score:1)
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
Well, back in the ooooooold days, they had a truly wonderful product - No, not their PCs... their keyboards that natively supported keyboard macros.
AFAIK, you simply can't get a product like that anymore. Sure, you have a million and one models that support "internet/multimedia hotkeys" (whicht, in my experience, never seem to work quite right unless you use
Re:BTX? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
I programmed my Autocad commands into the keyboard so I could issue draw commands strictly from the keyboard, since moving your mouse out of the drawing area into the command area wastes more than 50% of your time. Taking your left hand off of the mouse to type commands 2 handed is even more absurd. The modifier keys ( I think it was alt, shift and cntrl) let me make enough chorded combinations to make it all work out.
My first drafting system was
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
Re:BTX? (Score:2)
Re:Hey So, with all this talk about gateway #s (Score:2)