Acer gobbles up 75% of Packard Bell

Just like expected, Acer has formally bought into Packard Bell, snapping up 75% of PB Holdings, Packard Bell's parent company. Things got a bit hairy for a bit there when Packard Bell started speaking with Lenovo as well, since Acer fears losing its strength in Europe to the Chinese giant. Luckily for Acer, Gateway was the real clincher here, since Gateway started talks with Packard Bell before getting bought by Acer itself, and had nabbed the right to counter any offers Packard Bell might get from other companies. The deal officially went through on Wednesday for $45.8 million.

[Jeremy K. @ Jan 31st 2008 11:16AM]

Call me ignorant, but what/who in the world is Packard Bell? I seriously can't remember ever hearing of them.

[Ryan @ Aug 11th 2008 6:33PM]

you're ignorant.

they made crappy 486 and pentium machines in the us, and still make crappy machines in europe.

[Jeremy K. @ Jan 31st 2008 11:56AM]

Ohhhh yeah... Packard Hell... now I remember.

[Christian White @ Jan 31st 2008 11:25AM]

mmmm

packard bell was my first computer before i started building them yall remember good ol windows 3.1 it would come on and say packard bell and the packard bell navigator and had a little clown on the setup and kidspace also that was the $hyt i wish i could relive the 90's everything was better even the cartoons

oh yeah yall remember ski free

[josh @ Jan 31st 2008 11:36AM]

Ski Free was awesome! I always thought thats where South Park got their idea for Scuzzlebut from, the snow creature that comes out of nowhere at like 200 mph and eats you alive.

[Dan_C @ Jan 31st 2008 11:40AM]

Ski Free was amazing!

When you got going really fast you could do those crazy jumps where you would fly down half the mountain.

[Neoprimal @ Jan 31st 2008 1:03PM]

PB was my first REAL computer. I had a 286 my cousin had given me to play with (in a world of 486s) and when I caught a real interest my Mom got be a PB Pentium 90, mid-class at the time, a year or so before Win 95 was released. Oh those were the days. I LOVED PB Nav.

[demetrius @ Mar 6th 2008 4:24AM]

i miss ski free... can i download it anywhere? that frikkin snow monster was scary as hell back then.

[aeo @ Jan 31st 2008 11:28AM]

Should read: "Acer gobbles up 75% of Packard Bell... and then pukes it's guts out 30 minutes later."

[paragraph @ Jan 31st 2008 11:29AM]

I'm a tad confused here, can someone explain to me what just happened?

Packard bell was going under, and Gateway (essentially) bought them.

Now Acer is buying Packard Bell, therefore making Gateway an assload of money...

Or is Acer buying Gateway...

Or is Dell buying Acer???

Srlsly, i got lost along the way...

[Superprime @ Jan 31st 2008 11:30AM]

Acer bought Gateway

[Anthony @ Jan 31st 2008 11:32AM]

The picture explains it better than words ever could.

[applefreak @ Jan 31st 2008 11:32AM]

ahhhhh... a cow with teeth, sharp teeth!?!?!?!!!!!

[hootieben @ Jan 31st 2008 11:50AM]

Did I magically travel back in time to 10 years ago when this was relevant?

[Joe @ Jan 31st 2008 12:01PM]

Hooray! A crap company buys another crap company who buys another crap company. It's Crap Cubed. That's a full eight times as much crap as you could get from just one of these companies.

[Jagannath A @ Jan 31st 2008 2:42PM]

|_O|_

[T-MAC @ Jan 31st 2008 12:29PM]

I'm surprised by this. Primarily in that I had no idea that Packard Bell still existed and that anyone would want to buy it.

[Neoprimal @ Jan 31st 2008 1:09PM]

Well Compaq was 100 times worse than PB and HP bought them, so I don't think this is unbelievable at all. And yes, plenty people buy it...over in Europe. They seem to be pretty solid machines and amongst quite a few 'avoid packard bell' reviews and user feedback you may google, are quite a few people that really love their PBs.

[Andy @ Jan 31st 2008 4:22PM]

Don't diss the compaqs- I owned two, one was a windows 95 and the one I'm typing on is xp/vista/ubuntu. The first one worked great till it was outdated and this one, a few sticks of RAM and video card later, is still working great, despite everything I've done that should've destroyed it.

[Brian @ Jan 31st 2008 1:10PM]

Acer (to Packard Bell): NOM NOM NOM!

[tlgwat @ Jan 31st 2008 2:28PM]

My friend had the sweet Packard Bell, I had the mega-crappy Tandy 1000.

[ZeroCorpse @ Jan 31st 2008 3:25PM]

I used to sell Packard Bell computers.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Out of all the computers from PB we sold, about 75% came back as faulty, missing items, damaged, or just fuckin' useless.

Here's how I imagine the board meeting at Acer:

Exec #1: "Hey guys! I just bought us Packard Bell!"
Exec #2: "Packard Bell? For Christ's sake, what the hell for?"
Exec #3: "And where's our box of Krispy Kremes? We sent you out to get Krispy Kremes and you come back with Packard fucking Bell?"
Exec #2: "...and no Krispy Kreme donuts?"
Exec #1: "Well, on my way to Krispy Kreme this man came up to me on the street and offered me Packard Bell. It was a real bargain!"
Exec #3: "Waitaminute-- You didn't use the Krispy Kreme money to buy Packard Bell, did you?"
Exec #1: "Well, yeah. I did! I thought it was a great way to spend it! I thought you'd LIKE having Packard Bell instead of some donuts."
Exec #2: "Jesus' balls in a handbasket! You wasted our Krispy Kreme budget on Packard Bell? I can't eat Packard Bell! I can't dunk Packard Bell in my coffee, can I?"
Exec #1: "But I thought--"
Exec #3: "We sent you to perform a simple errand: Get Krispy Kreme donuts for the board. You couldn't even handle THAT?"
Exec #1: "I'm sorry guys. I figured this would be better than Krispy Kreme!"
Exec #2: "Well, you figured wrong. You made your bed, now you lie in it. You get to head up Packard Bell and deal with what you've done."
Exec #1: "Awww... I thought maybe we could run it together."
Exec #2: "No way. You bought it. You get to deal with it. And when you make that shitbox company turn a profit again, you can use the money to BUY US SOME GODDAMN KRISPY KREME, YOU MORON!"

Exec #1: [mopes... shuffles away with the keys to Packard Bell clutched in his hands]

[youngcalihottie @ Mar 4th 2008 12:41PM]

lol.

[demetrius @ Mar 6th 2008 4:24AM]

lol. whoo... i havent laughed like this in a while. thanks guys.