Re: A gutsy move to salvage Gateway?
My first reaction was - no good, Gateway is still a big OEM with a lot of momentum customers. For example, we still (literally) get semis full of gateway computers periodically, especially towards the end of the fiscal year (around now). That business is theirs for the asking but many of our buyers want Intel PCs - Gateway would be nuts to walk away from that business.
But there is a middle ground, and if they're in enough trouble right now, Gateway might not have much to lose. But they don't need to drop Intel by any means, all they need to do is to offer a "corporate" AMD desktop line, AMD servers, and a "corporate" AMD notebook line.
There is probably some pent up demand for such systems, and it might be enough to make up for what Intel would immediately do to them by way of retribution. Intel is in a weaker, but only a little weaker, position than usual. There certainly isn't any shortage of parts, so allocation away from Gateway might not appear to be much of a threat, but Intel has still managed to keep OEM parts out of the retail market (they've been able to stop grey market diversions of chips) which means that Gateway wouldn't be able to get what they needed from the grey market at a decent price.
Intel would immediately withdraw technical support, shipments would be messed up, Gateway would get far worse terms (tough on a company facing financial hardship), etc. Their only strategy might be to instantly and very publicly sue Intel for extortion (and many Billions of dollars) and try to make a public stink over the whole situation sufficient to get Intel to back off and let Gateway run its own business - but it's unlikely that Gateway would sue Intel and if they did it's unlikely that Intel would back off and let Gateway run its own business. Actually winning such a lawsuit would take so long it isn't really an issue - but the affect on public opinion might be significant enough to force Intel to let Gateway buy from who it wanted to.
Whatever - interesting thought. |
