Re: Off topic---- Gateway computers

Posted by ShepFL on June 03, 2004 at 08:12:08 from (155.14.118.90):

In Reply to: Off topic---- Gateway computers posted by Gene Davis (Ga.) on June 02, 2004 at 19:03:16:

Hey Gene -
Glad to hear you got some good service from GW. Hope that it remains. To much in America anymore is all for the sake of the sale without a thought given to the on-going business relationship be it an individual or an organization.

I work in 3PL business (contract warehouse and distribution). At one time we managed and delivered nearly 80% of GW machines domestically. As of that contract we also agreed to retool our offices with the purchase of 100's of new GW machines each yr. to replace our aging Compaq machines.

Needless to say, our experience with GW was less than stellar. At that time (97-01) GW used least cost vendor and the machines never had a std. config (internals) i.e. Seagate drive vs. Maxtor drive vs. Western Digital.

The above config issues are not much impact to individual user with one or two PCs but extremely costly to a large outfit when trying to standardize support and reduce operating costs for a large network. Me and others traveled many a time to N. Souix City, SD to meet with Ted Waitt only to be rebuffed. He was riding high in retail sales and did not care to hear our issues.
Side bar - first time we met Ted he was in flip flops, cut-offs and tye-dye shirt with pony tail, my CEO (formal business man - heavy starch) nearly fainted. It was 1 of 2 trips he made to N. Souix City, SD.

I think to late GW realized the ground they were rapidly loosing in Corp America and tried to turn it around (hence Ted Waitt's rtn).

While Ted Waitt was the visionary and was a great marketing head what he needed in to be competitve in in Corp America and in the competitive PC business in general was a guy with operations experience. That is where DELL kicked GW's butt.

We have since retooled and we are now using DELL machines exclusively - desktops, laptops, and rack mounted servers. We have never looked back.

True enough, all PC makers will will gladly sell you a cheap 'tin can' model or a quality machine. The choice is up to the customer and how much he wants to spend, however DELL caters to Corp. America and provides a respectable machine for the home user. Different focus thus their dominance. I doubt GW will ever return to the direct marketing retail dominance they had in the 90's.

Slice of my life, FWIW.

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• Re: Re: Off topic---- Gateway computers Gene Davis (Ga.) 20:38:09 06/03/04 (0)

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