Acer buys the farm (with cows)

For years Gateway Inc. has been standing by the side of the freeway with a sign around its neck saying “Will work (or be acquired) for food,” but nobody was willing to slow down long enough for it to jump into the back of the truck. But Taiwan electronics giant Acer apparently liked what it saw enough to spend $710 million on them.

Goodbye goofy cow boxes, hello Chinese takeout boxes.

Acer would also inherit Gateway’s option to acquire Packard Bell (aka the Pauly Shore of computing; you thought they were dead but they’re not, and still you don’t care).

Besides leapfrogging into the #3 spot in PC sales (behind HP and Dell), the acquisition gives Acer a ‘foothold’ in the US market, say various analysts. Maybe so, but it’s one with cow manure beneath. Doing this deal is like going to a really bad salad bar; the lettuce has wilted and the tomatoes look dodgy, but you can eat as much as you want.

At this point, Acer says it will continue to sell computers under the Gateway name; how things might change under the hood or on the other end of the support queue is anyone’s guess. Personally, I’ve owned and/or used computers from Apple, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM/Lenovo, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, and several other lesser brands, but never an Acer. I can’t name anyone who has. So all the Acer name really adds is uncertainty.

On the other hand, I’ve always had a soft spot for Gateway, even after one of their programmable keyboards went insane and started spouting gibberish as I typed, or when a cheap Gateway plasma caught fire in my living room. Maybe it was the cow boxes.

Is Acer’s Gateway purchase divine or just bovine? Give your thumbs up or down below or email your thoughts here. Top opiners may score some groovy Cringe swag.