FT.com / Mergermarket – Acer to buy Gateway for $710m — This should make things interesting.
Taiwan’s Acer said on Monday it will buy Gateway for $710m, creating the world’s No.3 PC maker, as Acer doubles its presence in Gateway’s lucrative but highly competitive home market.
Acer said it would pay $1.90 per Gateway share, representing a premium of 57 per cent over Gateway’s last closing price.
Acer said the merger would create a company with more than $15bn in sales and 20mn PCs shipped per year, adding it would keep the Gateway brand in the US.
”This acquisition of Gateway and its strong brand immediately completes Acer’s global footprint by strengthening our US presence,” Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said in a statement.
”This will be an excellent addition to Acer’s already strong positions in Europe and Asia. Upon acquiring Gateway, we will further solidify our position as No. 3 PC vendor globally.”
When I saw this post, my first thought was,”Well I hope Ted makes out good on this deal.” I always liked him and Gateway. Imagine my surprise when I found out that he doesn’t own any shares now.
Oops, I read it wrong. Ted still owns 46,172,46 shares, indirectly. Way to go, Ted!
Oh boy! More crap!
If someone gave me an Acer for free, I “might” pull the CPU and the RAM – but I would most certainly throw the rest of the computer into the garbage.
When I want a window box, I’ll still stick with averatec. Good service; excellent bang for the buck!
#3 — what don’t you like about Acer? They have been contract manufacturing PC components for a long time. Acer and AMD have both sponsored the Formula 1 circuit and the Ferrari team for years. I have both a notebook and a desktop Acer and have had zero problems, which I cannot say for the Dell’s that they replaced.
Gateway has been struggling for quite some time, now maybe the brand will flourish again with the new management. When Ted Waites was in active management, Gateway was a well known and liked brand. When he decided to be a philanthropist instead of a technology seller, the whole company went down the tubes.
Isn’t the import of this article the fact that it is another consequence of GOUSA trade deficits//decline in world competitiveness?
China now has enough US Bucks to buy the top 2000 blue chip companies in the GOUSA. Maybe studying mandarin isn’t such a bad idea.
3,
And what happens if you get a device with MICROSOFT on it??
I take it out and BASH it on the street, just to put it out of my Misery.
ACER makes more products, and has MORE products sold under OTHER names then most companies.
There products either WORK until you kill them, or are DOA.
I cant say that about MS products…
MS went out and REDESIGNED, how a mouse was designed internally, then sold it, and it WAS PURE CRAP. The Keyboards ARE/WERE that way also..
I havent bought one in ALONG time, and I WONT tell someone to spend $60 when they can get JUST as good/Better for $20.
#5 araknd
Among many other things and a long time ago, the only computer I’ve never been able to upgrade from Win95 to Win98 was an Acer. After I did it and the machine immediately started crashing, I read on their web site they’d made it impossible on purpose and my client needed to purchase a new Acer to get Win98. We’re talking over 500 computers they’d purchased before my time. That was the start of it.
Then what? On/Off switches that didn’t work or just fell off the case, lying about the amount of RAM available to the CPU because a lot of the RAM was dedicated to video, a BIOS that didn’t allow me to turn off the on-board video and add a video card – to make sure I couldn’t upgrade, missing video slots, so a video card couldn’t be added and the computer upgraded, a Slot 1 Pentium 3, which I’ve never seen before or since, Pentium 3s added to a 100 MHz, Pentium 2 motherboard, PC100 SDRAM required on a supposed Pentium 3 motherboard, DOA motherboards, cheap power supplies that didn’t work at all or burned out in a couple of months, etcetera, etcetera.
It’s been awhile since I looked at an Acer, except in a cheap-junk computer store outlet so I suppose I should shut my mouth because maybe they’ve improved but hey, they’re still pretty cheap, neh?
I’m glad your machines are working out OK and I hope they stay that way.
Look on the bright side: This company should compete well with Dell, driving prices on the low end down even further.
8. “It’s been awhile since I looked at an Acer, except in a cheap-junk computer store outlet so I suppose I should shut my mouth because maybe they’ve improved but hey, they’re still pretty cheap, neh?”
Yeah, I’m with you. I seem to remember them as down there with Packard Bell. Saw a lot of them service wise in the mid 90’s. I also seem to remember they were rated as one of the worst in Consumer polls. Maybe they changed, doubt it.
When it comes to A new computer…
I want CERTAIN name brand parts…PERIOD…
I dont like ACER for a full system..
For accessories…Fine.
But I want a company I can return stuff to…
#8 Acer is aims at the rock bottom PC market. Or used to… Because now they have decent Mobos and some nice laptops. Still they do own the base of the pyramid…
I’m looking at my 19″ wide LCD from Acer… can’t complain…other than a narrow vertical angle, the screen is much satisfactory.
From the roll of misfortune you stated there, there’s some things that IMHO could be corrected, if some diggin’ were to be made.
FYI, First Pentium 3 were Slot 1. They only become Socket370 after the 500Mhz P3.
Check out the wiki articles. At least you get some closure on the matter…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_3#Pentium_III_cores
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_370
Wow, I didn’t know Acer was that big and Gateway was that small. I would have guessed it to be the other way around.
Apparently Gateway’s purchase of eMachines a couple of years ago didn’t help out like they thought it would. So now Acer gets both.
Gateway’s still in business?
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Good bye Gateway, it was nice to know you one time long ago. I had begun to think you’d be good again, now this botches it totally. Talk about one sucky company, Acer is it. No way I’ll ever touch another Gateway unless it’s for the scrap heap now, not that I have recently anyway. But I was considering it again. Now, no, never.
Sucky it may be, and crapy and such, but they’re aiming at No.3, place that is occupied by Apple at the moment.
The crappiest taking the place of the coolest, and disrupting an all-American top 3, is IMHO, thought provoking…
I have all three brands in the house as laptops and desktops (Gateway, Acer, Emachines which is a PVR) and have had no problems. Go figure.
Former Gateway Senior Vice President rips current & past management over company death spiral.
http://pcpitstop.com/news/rob/rcheng0709.asp
Gateway execs had a golden opportunity last year to sell the retail portion of the company back to the former owner and founder of eMachines and decided not to. This would have made the most sense to employees at Gateway as it obvious that the current management has no idea what they are doing.
Emachines brand is the ONLY portion of this company that makes any money and Gateway continues to push all of their resources into the Gateway professional and Direct sales. They will not be able to compete in this market anytime soon if at all,not with the management in place. This is why the company must be sold. The sad thing is, Acer will do no better as they have horrific customer service and no professional at all. If the execs at Gateway had any real idea about creating the successful brand they will stop launching international programs without figuring out a backbone to support it first, eliminate jobs in North Sioux in Pro and Direct and concentrate on Retail where they have a chance to blow the competition away quick to market product, low cost,and adequate customer service.
Gateway can not maintain good talent any longer becuase employees tired of the moves that management made. Removing talented people from key positions, making stupid decisions like spending 100 million dollars on an Oracle launch that is and never will be complete, dumping toms of money into professional sales division and manufacturing center in Nashville that was not ready to launch, and moving into international markets with third party contractors that can not support the service end.
A few years ago when Gateway aqcuired eMachines, they got lucky to gain a team of individuals that knew what they were doing. Gateway has since eliminated all of these people, including the CEO in favor of idiots from Iowa that have noidea how to run a computer company. Why do you think John Hui only offered to purchase the retail position last year!