Acer acquires Gateway

…and the crappy, low budget computer market just got a bit smaller. Taiwanese company Acer has just purchased Gateway computers for the bargain basement price of $710 million, picking up the old Packard Bell company in the process. This deal makes Acer the 3rd largest PC manufacturer in the world, behind Dell and HP. Gateway has fallen a long way since the mid 90’s, when it was hailed as one of Dell’s chief competitors, and a legitimate contender for the top spot in the low-end PC market. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, as a series of terrible moves, including the acquisition of eMachines, and the move into the physical retail sector, (the one where you couldn’t buy a computer at the store!) has rendered the corporation lifeless and almost value-less. Let’s hope that Acer manages to resurrect the brand, perhaps turning it into an uber-high end boutique manufacturer. Ha! We can only dream, friends…

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