Gateway mulls new California headquarters

Gateway announced plans to relocate its headquarters to southern Orange County, as analysts focused on another real-estate question: What will happen to the PC maker's retail stores?

The company is looking at sites in the California county, it confirmed on Wednesday, as part of efforts to combine workers from its current headquarters in the San Diego area with employees from the main offices of eMachines. Gateway acquired low-cost retail PC leader eMachines in March.

"It's clear we needed a new head office, because neither of the current ones would be enough to accommodate the large staff and have room for growth," Gateway spokesman Bob Sherbin said.

The company has yet to sign a contract on a site, but is looking at one in Irvine, Calif., where eMachines is based. The move is not expected to be completed before July, Sherbin said.

Gateway will offer severance packages to employees who do not want to relocate, Sherbin said, but did not comment on how many workers might be affected.

Last week, Gateway announced its postmerger management structure is split fairly evenly between former executives of eMachines and Gateway. Seven of its 13 new senior vice presidents are former eMachines executives. The rest are from Gateway.

In buying eMachines, Gateway picked up new product distribution channels, including third-party retail stores in the United Kingdom and Japan, as well as in the United States. eMachines, which sells through retail channels, has staked out a significant share of the PC market.

Gateway established itself by selling PCs directly to consumers, but in recent years has moved toward setting up its own retail stores. In addition, it has expanded its portfolio of products to include consumer electronics devices, such as plasma screen televisions and digital audio players. However, Gateway has struggled with its retail efforts, leading analysts to wonder about its fate.

Most analysts believe Gateway will eventually shutter most, if not all, of its retail stores to cut costs. Such a move could also help persuade retailers that are currently its rivals to carry Gateway-branded PCs and consumer electronics devices.

"Gateway is going to have to test the waters and see how well its (consumer electronics) products are accepted by the retailers," said Toni Duboise, a desktop PC analyst at ARS.

CNET News.com's John Spooner contributed to this story.

Gateway Product - 26 in flat screen LCD

I cannot tell you how awful the service I have encountered over the past month with GATEWAY. We were lied to by at least 3 supervisors, 6 people who call themselves "customer service or technical service representatives" and they allege the TV is somewhere but they will have to check on it. We've heard this for the past 2 weeks and each time we call we get the same exact words. If the LCD/TV was defective from the start, should not the company replace it? If we, in good effort send a LCD overnight mail for quite a fee, to a contractor and the contractor steals, doesn't respond to inquiries, or simply lost it, shouldn't Gateway replace it now... and investigate later? What gives with this company? WOW, I wonder why they had to consolidate. I only hope this customer service team isn't the new team they went with!!!!!!!!!

[gatewayuseless]

I want to make one correction. I bought the computer at Best Buy who said I can not return the computer after 3 days, and shame on me for not investigating this more but Gateway return policy is 15 days. I still believe that every store should accept returns for 30days. If they get a return they ship it back to Gateway and they get their money back. They lose nothing by accepting returns up to 30days. Brenda Pagano

[gatewayuseless]

Gateway/Acer is the worse and most incompetent company to deal with when you have a computer problem. Mostly likely because the customer service/tech help people are outsourced to INDIA. How do you like those apples. They have their HQ is sunny CA the CEO's are racking in the money and americans are losing their jobs to India to answer an email that is generic and does not ever answer your problem. Then you send another email with the same problem and its a new person that makes you type all the hx and information all over again only to get the same pre recorded answer. This cycles goes on and on. Then to talk to soomeone is charge is a level 2 supervisor which means you have to call back and once I got a hold of that person about my problem, sorry nothing we can do. There is NO customer satisifaction at all. Nothing is offered to make a wrong situation right. I purchased 2 laptops within 5 months of eachother and right now neither one works. I had to request a back recovery disc that I had to pay for which most companies include when you buy a new computer, it has been more than 2 weeks and I still dont have it and I wont have it for another 7-10 days. That is almost 3 plus weeks to mail 3 backup discs from Tx/ they are so cheap they sent it FED EX POST so it had been through every state in the US and went from TX to CA to GA and I have no idea now where the hell these discs are. It is unbelivable and hard for me to type all of this without cursing. I have Left a message at the HQ about my exp and got a message back a week later to call another number but they are busy so I shoudl wait. That was an Executive that was listed on site saying not his department. I hope the media reads this as this company needs to be investigates esp.. when I learned they out source all tech support/customer service to INDIA. What about americans losing their jobs like me. I have a masters degree and have been out of work 1 yr. I need my laptop to send out resumes as all my stuff is stick in a Gateway computer that crashed for no reason. In less than 1 years time I had so many problems from the minute I bought both laptops md7800 series it has given me an ulcer and a truck driver mouth. Going back when I did talk to that Level 2 supervisor demanding them ship another set of discs next day air I was rejected on that idea to make a wrong situation right. I have so much more negative things I could say about everytime I had sent an email about another computer problem that I thought I was dealing with 10 yr people that just did not understand the problem and again emailed me something that did not solve my problem. The other thing I think congress needs to pass is a law for people that buy computer to have a 30 day return policy NOT 3 days as it is now. The 2nd Laptop I was forced to buying since the first one crashed and discs can not fix. I discovered 3 flaws with brand new laptop on day 7. Too late to return and customer services says ship it down you pay and we will look.That means more than 2 weeks of not having a computer when I needed it to look for work. So I kept the computer until it crashed Dec 22 for NO REASON. So from August 4, 2009 thru Dec 22, 2009 I dealth with sticky keys and everytime I deleted a sentence or used the backspace tab, it adds the letter c to my sentences that I have to go back and waste more time correcting my work because I bought a defected computer that I was not allowed to return on day 7 when I bought it. Going back to Gateway/Acer they have garbage laptops that I wasted over 1000.00 within 5 months time and the customer services/tech suppport is a waste of time as they do nothing to help you but send you a pre recorded link and see if you can figure it out. There is no customer satisfication at all as they have no authority to make a wrong situation right because they are sub contracted out from the sunny hills of Irvine CA where the HQ is and the CEO's are counting their money saving a buck by outsourcing and no returns. For everyone that reads this warn your friends and family. Never buy a Gateway or Acer computer you will waste your money and your health will be afffected by the stress you will go through to get your computer to work correctly. Gateway is GARBAGE. Brenda Pagano, MSA Wixom, MI