Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)
>An email cc'd to me, from a friend, to GW Management:
(posted with her permission)
Sirs,
I recently viewed the news of the store closures en masse with slight
disappointment, but without surprise. The Country Stores were doomed
from the start by management stupidity and an unwillingness to put the
reality of customer needs ahead of the concept with which they were
developed.
On many occasions, I visited the Metcalfe Ave. Gateway store with the
entirely reasonable expectation of doing business and wound up
purchasing a product either from the Micro Center store across the
street or at a white-box vendor at approximately 80th and Metcalfe in
Overland Park, or mail-order. The reality was that the Country Stores
were geared to lowest-common-denominator consumer purchasers, featured
staff that lacked any real knowledge of the product they sold- a
product that is both highly technical and is a commodity product- and
lacked the authority or wherewithal to make needed decisions if they
had the knowledge to do so. The "service" was ridiculous at best even
for those lowest common denominator consumer clients, as well, with
what should have taken ten to thirty minutes to fix usually taking one
to three weeks.
My only disappointment is with "that which could have been". Gateway
could have had a first class operation had they been willing to hire
and retain good talent, put client needs ahead of the sacred concept,
and "leave on the table" the unprofitable commodity business in favor
of high-end consumers, knowledgable businesses, and quality,
low-maintenance institutional accounts. But by focusing on "competing
with Wal-Mart" you ran into a ditch. Good customers avoided Gateway,
bad ones flocked to Gateway and drove support costs skyward. Quality
employees, not just at the stores but at call centers and
manufacturing, left and the inept, disturbed, or opportunistic
flourished.
The closed Gateway Country Stores will enter a special space, a
virtual museum of cars like the Tucker and Beech Plainsman,
Woolworth's hot dog counters, with the sound of Brian Wilson's
uncompleted albums and images from the original "Something's Got to
Give", abandoned due to the tragic suicide-or was it?-of its leading
lady. That which could have been, only if. If only, to be blunt, you
hadn't been a bunch of idiots.
I doubt Gateway will survive another six months; I suspect HP will
"acquire" the company and dissolve it. And the executives will leave
with large cash sums, as is usual American practice. (Personally, if I
had been Ted, I'd of sold my stock and done something else three years
ago, but that's just me.) And the employees? Let's face it: who cares?
They're commodity drones and they'll find something else to do.
Perhaps in your future endeavors, you will listen when someone tries
to explain, as I did, why I'm not buying today.
>An email cc'd to me, from a friend, to GW Management:
(posted with her permission)
Sirs,
I recently viewed the news of the store closures en masse with slight
disappointment, but without surprise. The Country Stores were doomed
from the start by management stupidity and an unwillingness to put the
reality of customer needs ahead of the concept with which they were
developed.
On many occasions, I visited the Metcalfe Ave. Gateway store with the
entirely reasonable expectation of doing business and wound up
purchasing a product either from the Micro Center store across the
street or at a white-box vendor at approximately 80th and Metcalfe in
Overland Park, or mail-order. The reality was that the Country Stores
were geared to lowest-common-denominator consumer purchasers, featured
staff that lacked any real knowledge of the product they sold- a
product that is both highly technical and is a commodity product- and
lacked the authority or wherewithal to make needed decisions if they
had the knowledge to do so. The "service" was ridiculous at best even
for those lowest common denominator consumer clients, as well, with
what should have taken ten to thirty minutes to fix usually taking one
to three weeks.
My only disappointment is with "that which could have been". Gateway
could have had a first class operation had they been willing to hire
and retain good talent, put client needs ahead of the sacred concept,
and "leave on the table" the unprofitable commodity business in favor
of high-end consumers, knowledgable businesses, and quality,
low-maintenance institutional accounts. But by focusing on "competing
with Wal-Mart" you ran into a ditch. Good customers avoided Gateway,
bad ones flocked to Gateway and drove support costs skyward. Quality
employees, not just at the stores but at call centers and
manufacturing, left and the inept, disturbed, or opportunistic
flourished.
The closed Gateway Country Stores will enter a special space, a
virtual museum of cars like the Tucker and Beech Plainsman,
Woolworth's hot dog counters, with the sound of Brian Wilson's
uncompleted albums and images from the original "Something's Got to
Give", abandoned due to the tragic suicide-or was it?-of its leading
lady. That which could have been, only if. If only, to be blunt, you
hadn't been a bunch of idiots.
I doubt Gateway will survive another six months; I suspect HP will
"acquire" the company and dissolve it. And the executives will leave
with large cash sums, as is usual American practice. (Personally, if I
had been Ted, I'd of sold my stock and done something else three years
ago, but that's just me.) And the employees? Let's face it: who cares?
They're commodity drones and they'll find something else to do.
Perhaps in your future endeavors, you will listen when someone tries
to explain, as I did, why I'm not buying today.
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