The Story
 
eMachines with a focus on value based PCs and Gateway with a focus on direct sales have become well established names in the computer industry. In March 2004, Gateway acquired eMachines in a transaction valued at the time of the announcement at $235 million.
 
 

 
The Strategy Behind the Merger
Now that Wayne Inouye (formerly CEO of eMachines) has secured himself as the new CEO of Gateway, he has announced plans to migrate as many of the same concepts from eMachines over to Gateway as possible.
 
In a way, you could say Gateway is hoping some of eMachines success will rub off on them. This is good for both companies because, through Gateway, eMachines will now have a stronger foothold in the retail market.
 
How This Affects Your Job
In March of 2004, Gateway announced a new senior management team. Employed as Senior Vice President of IT/Web is our very own Andy Lee (formerly President and CEO of Alorica).
 
"This strong, seasoned senior management team from both Gateway and eMachines has substantial experience and a track record of success," Mr. Inouye said. "It brings together the right mix of talents, skills and passion that Gateway needs to achieve our ambitious objectives and I look forward to working with this team to do that."
 
This is good news for Alorica because currently we are a significant part of both eMachines and Gateway’s customer service success. eMachines was and is extremely happy with Alorica’s service and Gateway bought out eMachines because of their success. That ensures, and even promotes Alorica growing further and gives Alorica employees further job opportunity.
 
In fact, eMachines received the number one spot on several customer service measures in December 2003 according to a survey by PC World Magazine. eMachines proudly presented Alorica with a commemorative plaque which hangs in the lobby of our facility.
 

This is the summary of the results of that survey

 
Plans for the Future
As anyone who shops at Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, or Costco knows, all the best discounted prices are offered to buyers who will purchase in bulk. What you may not know is that the same concept is also true for big-time OEM manufacturers. Now that the merger has combined two of the world’s top PC manufacturers, we will begin to see the leverage of buying power through major hardware manufacturers across the world. In the future, you can expect to see some of our new hardware arriving at larger volume discounts for both Gateway and eMachines.
 
Conclusion
 
Many references were made to online articles discussing the Gateway/eMachines merger. You can read them to learn more specific information about this topic by following the links below.
 
• PCWorld.com – “Reliability and Service Report Card”
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/1,aid,112915,pg,8,00.asp
 
• “Why the eMachines Model Is Paying Off”
http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=124785,00.asp
 
• “The Gateway That Could Have Been”
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/03/23/cx_ah_0323hui.html