Acer Buys Gateway, More Cheap Computers to Follow

Acer has become the world’s third largest PC manufacturer, purchasing Gateway Computers for $710 million. Although still lagging behind Dell and HP, Acer has catapulted itself onto the podium with this rather noteworthy acquisition. Sure, Gateway Computers has “fallen a long way since the mid 90s” but they’re still a recognized name in the budget PC game. By swallowing up Gateway, Acer gets to gobble up some more market share.

As you recall, Gateway acquired eMachines some time back as well, so that chunk is now also owned by Acer. Sure, Acer has some top quality computers in their own right, but the bulk of their sales are dedicated to budget-minded, bargain basement number crunchers for soccer moms and casual Internet surfers. If you want cheap, it looks like Acer is the way to go now.

There’s no telling what Acer will do with Gateway now that they own them. Will they continue to operate those strange physical retail stores that don’t let you actually buy anything in the store?