Acer Buys Gateway, Shocks Lenovo - Acer and Gateway: the Analysts Weigh in
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Bryan Ma with IDC was favorably impressed with the deal. “Acer ranked sixth in the US market, while Gateway ranked third as of the second quarter. Combined, they are expected to double their shipments…This is definitely a good play for them from the US consumer perspective,” he noted. But there are some very real challenges ahead. “This starts to bring back memories of the whole Lenovo-IBM deal,” he added. “Can you integrate the operations of the two organizations quickly enough to reap the benefits of that kind of scale? That remains to be seen.”
J. P. Gownder, a PC analyst at Forrester Research, not surprisingly said that “The company that loses the most from this is Lenovo. Acer is saying [it’s] going to be a world player. That is a huge stake on the ground.” He also noted that, “While much diminished in the US market, Gateway still has a foothold in certain retail outlets and Acer hasn’t been able to crack into that.”
Meanwhile, some folks got to say “I told you so.” “We did predict another round of more consolidation,” noted David Daoud, manager of Personal Computing and PC Tracker Programs at IDC. “Acer and Gateway have excellent opportunities to grow together as a combined company, at least in the US, because they don’t overlap. Being acquired by a company that has resources and is committed to the US market is probably the best thing for Gateway at the moment.”
Finally, Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, thinks the merger is a “clever consolidation.” “There’s going to be an issue as to how Acer and Gateway position their brands to stay out of each other’s way, but the companies have indicated that they will maintain a multibrand strategy. Positioning eMachine desktops and Acer laptops at the low end and Gateway as the premium in both form factors is a smart way to divide the brands.”
We probably won’t see this repositioning for at least another year. But at the very least, the battle for the hearts and minds of PC purchasers has just become even more joined – and you can bet that Acer is going to milk its position for all it’s worth.
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