All projects: Gel, Jobs, Gootodo, Games, Uncle Mark, Goovite, Blog, Bit Literacy
Gateway is sold off to Acer
The WSJ reports that Taiwan's Acer will buy Gateway (reg. required). The hook:
One time having as many as 24,000 employees, Gateway slashed its work force to fight slumping sales that resulted in mounting losses for the company. The firm took years to return to profitability as continued price drops and competition from Dell and H-P, among others, has pressured Gateway's performance.
I knew Gateway back when they were more focused on serving customer needs; in fact, the company was one of Creative Good's first clients. Here's the case study of the project, which we still refer to when describing customer experience work.
That one project made Gateway many millions of dollars, and now the entire company has sold for $710 million. It's quite an end for a company that once led the consumer PC market with its friendly, customer-oriented attitude. (Remember the cow spots on the shipping boxes?) Unfortunately, the company lost its focus and invested in the wrong things:
Earlier this decade, Gateway diversified into plasma televisions and other consumer electronics in an effort to cut its reliance on PCs, but the move didn't work. The firm also shuttered the rest of its retail stores in 2004, five years after the company attempted to use that sales process to further leverage its then-reputation as a maker of reliable PCs at a low price.
(Thanks, Phil)
See also: David Kirkpatrick's column on the Gateway sale
