Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Gateway Sells Business Division to MPC...

I am confused and bummed. My favorite PC manufacturer has sold it's business division to another company, MPC, what used to be Micron. Now granted I owned a Zeos 486, and they became or got taken over by Micron who used to make good stuff. But haven't they only be making memory for quite some time now??? Years ago when I wanted to buy a new tower my first idea was to seek out Micron because they used to have a great reputation. And at that time it seemed that Micron had been out of the PC end of the business for a good number of years. So where does this MPC, Micron based PC company come from, what is it's history and reputation???

I really liked supporting Gateway because most of their desktop stuff was still assembled here in the US of A and their business tech support has been for years as well. I'd either get the mid-west or Florida. Folks I could understand and who could understand me.

So now who is making what over at MPC? ALready, I don't like their web-site as much. And what is left on the consumer side of Gateway just isn't as strong nor does if have as much options to pick from for customizing. I can't get my favorite convertable laptop with anything but Windows Vista Home on the Gateway side. And any of us who have business purchased gateway stuff, that is now been sluffed off on this new MPC for all your tech support. Now they claim to be US based tech support as well, but after years of decent support from a company I trusted I feel betrayed to just be passed off like that.

Now I'm really stumped as to what to do for any new purchases. I always found Dell's website not as easy or straight forward. Plus it seemed that in general one could get similarly configured machines for hundreds less from Gateway as opposed to Dell. And as Much as I like HP printers, I'm not a big fan of there PC's.

But in the end I envy these folks who have a real freemarket to do business in as compared to us...

This is really a bummer. Gateway made good equipment for a good price. Between me and 2 of my sisters (and this practice) we have bought 9 Gateway computers over the last 10 years. Maybe 11. (One was a repeat buy when the house was broken into. They only stole 2 thihgs. My new gateway computer. And my wheeled luggage-- I think they put the computer in it).

Don't knnow who I'll buy my next one from now.

I was just about to buy a computer for the kids, which I guess I could do thru their consumer side still, although even that I was going to buy business like because I always loved their business service, it was really good. With all our Gateways here we have had one hardware failure in all that time. Last year the harddrive in my laptop failed after 3 years of daily 8-15 hour a day use. And a good tech set me up to run the right test almost immediately so as to not waste my time trying to fix the wrong thing.

And we are going to need to purchase a new tower and perhaps another laptop at some point soon. But just weeks ago you could buy business side and get options like Windows XP Pro on just about anything. Now there is no XP Pro Tablet option on their convertables...

Let's both write them pissed off business customer letters. And if I'm not mistaken Brian is using a few of their convertable laptops too.

10-15 years ago when Micron had one of the best names and reputations, I probably would have jumped at the chance to buy their stuff, but just who is this supposedly new, out growth of Micron today? And where are my machines being made? I know most of the laptops are made in Asia (bullchitt) but like I said the desktops were made here on this side of the ocean and so was all of their support for all products. Just as it should be. Trust me I was just on the phone last week with the other side of the world for HP support and the communication just was not happening. Finally it was Bert and Vinny who helped get me straight, not HP (thanks guys!). This really stinks. Have a good weekend...
Paul

Bump,
Have any of the Gateway loyal bought their laptops with any of the Vista based operating systems on them? It seems that although one can still buy their upscale towers with XP Pro on them, the laptops are all shackled with Vista. I know many folks report Vista issues and so I too am trying to avoid being any early adopter of a "beta-version" OS that is not ready for primetime and requires one to purchase new stuff to fit them. I really want to buy a few new machines before new year. One for the family and one or two for the business. I refuse to be sent to that company they sold their business customers to. Thoughts and feedback anyone???

I recently bought several Acer(s). I like Acer because they have all drivers availble online for each particular model, so it is very easy to erase Vista and install XP. Some manufactures, like Compaq don't provide all XP drivers for computes with pre-installed Vista. Dell makes it very difficult to find the right XP drivers for Vista computers, even if you call customer support, they are not sure which XP drivers you should download, and some XP drivers are missing.