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How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

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Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#21

Post by [deleted] »

greenthrow wrote: post #14

Calling Gateway a tech company shows how meaningless that term is in 2022. Nobody would have called it that in 1995. A computer company, sure. But not a tech company. What's the difference? They didn't develop any technology. They built computers out of components others developed. Those components were available elsewhere. What Gateway sold was the service of putting them together for you and offering support.

[deleted]

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#22

Post by colechristensen »

vel0city wrote: post #5

I 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.

Decades of brain drain have made many small towns rather unattractive prospects besides cost for many who work in skilled corporate jobs.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#23

Post by korginator »

I remember trying to purchase a Gateway desktop PC in the late 90s or early 2000s since they offered a range of AMD processor options that other vendors did not. When the machine was delivered, it would keep trying to boot up and freeze. Their customer support was abysmal, and I was so disheartened by the experience that I returned it the same week and ordered a run of the mill Dell beige box that just worked. I never risked trying a Gateway again.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#25

Post by dehrmann »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #8

Gateway 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.

There was a lot of consolidation in the space. Lots of mom-and-pop shops, IBM, HP, Compaq, Packard Bell, Dell, and many, many more (my first computer was an AST). They all did the same thing, and there wasn't space for that many players. The most telling bit was that IBM, the company that defined what all the others would clone, sold off that business to Lenovo.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#26

Post by dehrmann »

korginator wrote: post #23

I remember trying to purchase a Gateway desktop PC in the late 90s or early 2000s since they offered a range of AMD processor options that other vendors did not. When the machine was delivered, it would keep trying to boot up and freeze. Their customer support was abysmal, and I was so disheartened by the experience that I returned it the same week and ordered a run of the mill Dell beige box that just worked. I neve…

Dude, you're getting a Dell.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#28

Post by onething »

bachmeier wrote: post #18

What made them special was the service. I knew several people that worked there when they were the king of the hill. When I started grad school at Texas A&M, Gateway was the sole supplier of computers, in spite of the fact that they were a state school just down the road from Dell. According to my friends that worked there, Gateway decided service was too expensive, so they killed off the single reason they were popu…

Their service to institutions might have been good at one point, but their service to consumers was horrendous. I bought a PC from them at around their height and about 1 month later the hard disk died. It took a few customer service calls (each requiring a wait of 45 minutes to an hour to talk to someone) before they agreed the hard disk was bad. They send out an empty hard disk and I had to take the time to re-install all the software from a huge number of floppies. I also had to take time to package up the old drive, go to UPS and pay the postage to ship the broken drive back to them. (I remember they preemptively billed my credit card for the hard disk and later credited me. I guess they assumed their customers were scum bags like themselves.) I realized that when taking my time into account, I would have been much better off just paying for the hard drive myself and ignoring the warranty. Companies like they deservedly belong in the ash heap of history.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#29

Post by digisign »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #8

Gateway 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.

Dell survived. Nothing to be ashamed of making clones, they enabled the growth of the PC industry.

Re: How the Apple of the Midwest fell apart

#30

Post by digisign »

korginator wrote: post #23

I remember trying to purchase a Gateway desktop PC in the late 90s or early 2000s since they offered a range of AMD processor options that other vendors did not. When the machine was delivered, it would keep trying to boot up and freeze. Their customer support was abysmal, and I was so disheartened by the experience that I returned it the same week and ordered a run of the mill Dell beige box that just worked. I neve…

Sounds like it was an AMD and/or driver issue. We never had trouble with our intel GWs.
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