Acer completes Gateway acquisition -- GTW delisted

It's official, Acer has acquired nearly 90% of Gateway shares bringing an end to Gateway's pioneering independence. The $710 million deal makes Gateway a wholly owned subsidiary of the Taiwanese PC maker and brings an end to the GTW listing on the New York Stock Exchange. With Gateway ready to gobble up Packard Bell, Acer becomes a solid, global number 3 powerhouse behind HP and Dell.

[Tony @ Oct 17th 2007 2:06AM]

Yhey for Pac Man!

[Zuhaib @ Oct 17th 2007 3:28AM]

Ouch.. Well I guess I am going to take my old Gateway 2000 PII out and pour her a 40 as last honors.

Gateway was actually a victim of just being ahead of the time. They where the first to see Media PCs, i remember them pushing really hard there living room systems. The only problem was, well, at the time they where just regular computers with really big monitors and crappy res. No real internet, nothing.
And now look today with AppleTV and Windows Media Center.

Gateway we will miss you (that is till you come back as rebanded Acer's)

[Garst @ Oct 17th 2007 4:24AM]

I don't think the Apple TV has really taken off:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2007/10/cultofmac_1017

I'm not say that Media Center Extenders have gotten too far, but you do have all those Xbox 360s out there.

[rp @ Oct 17th 2007 3:41AM]

Wakka wakka

[randy @ Oct 17th 2007 3:51AM]

I know nothing lasts forever, but this is Gateway's last gasp, so I guess it's time to say goodbye. The "Gateway" of the 2000's won't be missed, but I'll admit I am a bit nostalgic for the "Gateway 2000" of 1995, when you could call them up and get connected to some friendly folks in the midwest within minutes, people who were actually computer users themselves and therefore actually had enough enthusiasm for computers to know a little bit about fixing them, rather than some spiritless drone in east Asia struggling to read off bullet-points from the online knowledgebase, who refuses to even give you a scripted, "hello" until you've dictated your driver's license to them. Phonetically. TWICE.

What is they ask me every time I call? Oh yes, "And may I also have your zip code, please sir" My ZIP code? Pffft, look it up yourself, you buffoon. If the phone number I keyed into the telephone, then REPEATED to you phonetically wasn't satisfactory security clearance for getting some worthless troubleshooting tips, then why the hell did you ask me for it to begin with, twice? And furthermore what makes you think that because I've dialed an American telephone number, in the USA, to a company located in the USA, that I want to speak "Espanol"?

[yin @ Oct 17th 2007 4:50AM]

wow. this is QUITE an ignorant, narrow-minded commenter we have here!

[John B @ Oct 17th 2007 9:15AM]

@yin:

Quite true, but the post is still accurate. While Gateway was still under the wing of Ted Waitt, it was a phenomenal company. I remember buying a laptop from them back in the 90s. It wasn't the fastest (486SX, 25 MHz) but it never gave me any problems and even had a 50-pin SCSI-2 port. I called in for a hard drive issue and not only did I not have to send the laptop in, they sent a new drive via Fed Ex Next Day delivery - no ifs, ands, or buts. I bought a Gateway PC for my wife around 1999 or 2000 that had a three-year warranty when most other companies offered one-year warranties, and that beast was rock-solid until we finally replaced it with a newer model. And during a time when most other companies were giving you BS, proprietary restore CDs, Gateway was still sending genuine, Windows installation CDs.

But now most companies have resorted to off-shore outsourcing (which ironically has come full circle in that an Indian phone support company has outsourced to a company in Ohio), paltry one-year warranties, on-drive restores that are useless if the drive dies, and bullet points for tech support. And when calling tech "support", God forbid that you try to assert the fact that you've done every bit of troubleshooting known to man already. They still need to follow their bullet points and often can be difficult to understand, although I do wholeheartedly agree with the gist of Randy's last sentence.

Gateway used to be an awesome company. If Gateway kept doing what they did back in the late 1990s, I believe that they would have dwarfed HP and Dell in the home market right now.

RIP, Gateway. I for one had nothing but good experiences with you.

[Brian Danielson @ Oct 17th 2007 11:57AM]

"gaycer"

[Matthew @ Oct 17th 2007 12:02PM]

Are the keeping the Gateway name?

My gateway laptop is 2 years old and doing great.

[granny down east @ Oct 18th 2007 12:30AM]

So long, Gateway- you were my first and you were really the best.