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Technology Stocks : Gateway (GTW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Miller who wrote (5453)	2/24/1998 11:00:00 PM
From: DWW II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8002

My brother wrote me a memo today that said; "Brand equity is the only true value that this or any other company has that is BANKABLE. Like Bob Keogh the former President of Coca Cola used to say; "you can take away all Coke's production and distribution facilities worldwide, but as long as you leave the Brand I can grow the business back again as good as it ever was, but if you take the Brand away we have nothing." I have a great deal of respect for my brother and his judgement. If what he said here can be generalized to the PC industry, then I would say that GTW has great brand equity. I know all of there commercials be heart. I wait for new ones to see what they are shooting at. So, yes I think GTW is a long term player. I want to give you an analysis of their progress that may make sense to you. You see, Ted Waitt wanted to converge the PC with TV. About two or three years ago, he put his first finished product on the market. He didn't do any market analysis because he felt there was no time (he wanted to be first), and besides, what would GTW analyze? This was a very bad mistake as it distracted the whole company. They went down a dead end road. In the mean time, DELL stuck with their core business and made great strides in improving the manufacturing process. GTW still makes PSs the same way they made them three years ago. I know, as I have been in the N.Sioux City plant and the process of checking out components and assembling them is still in place. What a joke. The new guy, COO from AT&T will fix that. I was at COMDEX 97'this year and heard Eckhard Pfeiffer talk about the convergence of PC/TV. He had a demo, with a living room setting, set up with the proposed new product. Two months later they dumped the product, and went back to what they do best. Now the DEC move has them checking out "total enterprise" management. Is this good for CPQ. Short term probably no. Long term, it is the future. Client / Server based on NT is the future. DWW II