Gateway 2000

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Gateway 2000 (later renamed to just Gateway) was a PC clone manufacturer founded in 1985. Gateway (and subsidiary eMachines) was acquired by Acer in 2007.

Gateway 2000 used "farm" style branding traits for its packaging materials and later retail stores.

History

Gateway 2000 is a leading global marketer of personal computers. Ted Waitt, chairman and CEO, founded Gateway 2000, Inc., in September 1985, in Sioux City, Iowa, with business partner Mike Hammond, vice president. The company moved to its present location in North Sioux City, South Dakota, in January 1990.

Waitt, a fifth generation Midwesterner, grew up in a family atmosphere that encouraged entrepreneurship. The previous four generations of Waitts were cattlemen, a breed known for their independent, risk-taking approach to business. Ted Waitt took the cattleman’s spirit into the world of high technology.

Waitt and Hammond formed Gateway 2000 with one goal in mind - to offer PC buyers a logical alternative to the high markups, limited choices and inadequate support common in the retail PC market. The partners started by selling hardware peripherals and software to people who owned Texas Instruments personal computers. By placing ads in computer-related publications and selling their products directly to end users, Waitt and Hammond helped pioneer the direct-market growth in the PC industry, generating $100,000 revenue in their first four months of business.

In 1987, Waitt recognized another relatively untapped market, that of technically sophisticated customers who would buy completely configured PCs sight unseen if they were given a good price. Under Waitt’s direction, Gateway 2000 designed and assembled its own fully-configured PC-compatible systems. This strategy catapulted Gateway’s sales. The company reported revenues of $1.5 million in 1987, $12 million in 1988, $70.6 million in 1989, $275 million in 1990, $626 million in 1991, $1.1 billion in 1992, $1.7 billion in 1993, $2.7 billion in 1994 and $3.7 billion in 1995. Revenues for the first three quarters of 1996 total almost $3.5 billion.

Gateway 2000 became a publicly traded company in December 1993, offering stock on the Nasdaq market under the symbol GATE.

Products

Laptops

Desktops

Monitors

Disk Gallery

Documentation

Product Guide

Promotional Items