Gateway To Make Major Changes In Business
Executives at Gateway's annual financial analyst meeting in San Diego said Thursday that the company intends to revamp its retail stores and launch a broad range of new products for businesses and consumers. The list of products includes computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), networking gear and services, home-theater equipment--and even furniture.
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Comments
*CONFIRMED*
Gateway just doesn't get it.
I see impending Doom for the Cow Company.
Guess we'll just have to let the chips fall where they may.
Gateway PC's many times get better reviews than Dell PC's, are priced similarly (often a little lower), yet Dell flourishes and Gateway languishes.
Unless it's because Dell kills Gateway in the business PC side and servers it doesn't make any sense to me.
Originally posted by dygysy
Unless it's because Dell kills Gateway in the business PC side and servers it doesn't make any sense to me.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head here. Also Dell has basically shown itself to be superior to its rivals in reliability, service and support which in the PC world is highly prized.
HAVE A GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE.
Originally posted by dygysy
This is a situation I could never understand.
Gateway PC's many times get better reviews than Dell PC's, are priced similarly (often a little lower), yet Dell flourishes and Gateway languishes.
Unless it's because Dell kills Gateway in the business PC side and servers it doesn't make any sense to me.
Why did the Amiga languish while vastly inferior PCs and Macs (Amiga + Video Toaster > Everything Else) took off?
They couldn't market themselves out of a wet paper bag.
They built 500,000 retail stores all at once without starting off small and testing their concept - which was a bit questionable at best. You could go into a heavily-advertised Gateway store, but you couldn't walk out with a PC the same day. You had to place your order and wait. Unless you really wanted a Gateway, you were likely to walk out to the nearest CompUSA, Sears, or whomever had the nice ad in that day's paper and grab your new PC there.
If I really wanted a new Mac, would I drive down to the nearest Apple Store if my only option was to place my order, and then come back in a few days to pick it up, pack it into my car and drag it home, if I could just go to store.apple.com and save the hassle?
Unlikely.
Originally posted by Telomar
The irony is that sort of diversification generally just sends the profitability plummeting further. Pacific Dunlop springs to mind as an example. I somewhat doubt the markets will respond to this news overly positively because it sends the message, "We don't know how to fix the problems we have so we're going to just try as many areas as possible and see if one works."
My thoughts exactly.