Acer and Gateway one big, happy family at CES
LAS VEGAS--Acer and Gateway don't have a whole lot of news here at CES--aside from a few new gaming desktops and a laptop--but it is new that they are here as one. Their combined logos were everywhere in their displays.
Acer and Gateway are officially one company, two brands here at CES.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)The transition since Acer's purchase of Gateway late last year for $710 million is nearly complete, the company says. The same person--Rudi Schmidleithner--now runs both Gateway and Acer's American business unit.
While Acer declined to give many details about the coming year, it did hint that it's going to be a busy one. While it will continue to focus on industrial design, company spokesman Rich Black did say that we shouldn't expect to see any ultra-small portable form factors from the Taiwanese company this year. Much more likely is the opposite, he said: a focus on heftier media and entertainment-oriented notebooks with bigger screens and souped-up features.
Also noted: Some Acer laptops come with HD DVD drives. In light of the recent development with Warner Bros. choosing Blu-ray as its high-definition format of choice, would Acer be pulling HD DVD from its repertoire of features? Nope. Acer is "platform agnostic," said Black and will continue to support both Blu-ray and HD DVD on its machines.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
