How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
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Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#2“People barely remember the cow-spotted boxes”? Really? Those immediately come to mind if you say the word Gateway.
I’m not convinced that a maker of PC clones is a good analog to Apple though.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#3Apple of the Midwest? It was a run of the mill IBM/PC clone that wasn't special in any way.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#4Apple of the Midwest? It was a run of the mill IBM/PC clone that wasn't special in any way.
They did have retail stores, which as a person younger than the average on here is something that differentiates Gateway from say Compaq or eMachines in my mind
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#5I really hope the proof of the success of remote work and the reduction of the need to have people in giant corporate campuses in expensive corners of the world brings a revival of small towns.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#6Apple of the Midwest? It was a run of the mill IBM/PC clone that wasn't special in any way.
They did have retail stores, which as a person younger than the average on here is something that differentiates Gateway from say Compaq or eMachines in my mind
The problem i saw in my area was they opened up shop almost right across the street from comp-usa. I used to haunt that comp-usa and frequently i would hear people talk about just being over there. Their mai compalint was that they had to wait for thier computer but they could just buy one at comp-usa and leave with it. I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#7Apple of the Midwest? It was a run of the mill IBM/PC clone that wasn't special in any way.
Certainly wasn't Apple but as a kid, until Dell started it's advertising blitz, Gateway definitely felt... authoritative?, functionally first party? in a way that none of the other DOS/Windows boxen did.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#8Gateway never really even manufactured computers = they assembled them from components built by real tech manufacturers. As clones went, they were high quality, and well-supported, but there was nothing else to differentiate them from any other clone. I reckon their demise was written into their business model from the outset.
Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart
#9My second computer was from Gateway 2000, this was before the whole retail store experiment, back when they had the awesome ads in Computer Shopper and the other mags (PC Magazine, etc). I think this was really their heyday. Awesome systems, cool accessories. Anyone remember the AnyKey keyboard? A (re)branded 124-key keyboard and you could program a macro of like 128 key strokes into any single key. It was awesome.
I think they were on the decline (at least mindshare-wise for techies) before the whole retail storefront thing, which seemed dumb to me from the get go - like a hail mary attempt to salvage the company at what must have been enormous expense and labor headaches.
Buy yeah, I'd hardly call them 'Apple of the Midwest'. They were a great clone builder/reseller in their day. Their computers were refreshingly free of proprietary crap as I recall. I'd call them more a "Dell of the Midwest".