PC Manufacturers will thin in coming years

[mbossman2]

According to Gartner the number of PC manufacturers to drop by 3 by 2007...

not surprising...only Dell turns a consistent profit in this space.

Any guesses on who will go bye-bye?

[discodanman45]

Gateway, e-machines, and Toshiba. Hewlett Packard will stick around.

[damontgo]

dell will stick around for sure... and I think Toshiba will as well, they make a pretty solid laptop. i think hp might experience some trouble since they merged with compaq(this is correct, yes?). I have never, and will never be a fan of compaq. I also have to say I have been dissapointed with some of HP-Compaq's products. Gateway and eMachines will go bye bye, and maybe Apple can scoop up their little piece of the market share... It will be interesting to see, for sure

[mbossman2]

my guess is that the lines that will go away are the ones that have more to offer than just PC's. IBM, who relies on their server and heavy computing iron, will probably spin their PC line off somewhere (but keep their laptoip business...still profitable). HP may dump their business desktop line and focus in on just their server and UNIX systems. The final casualty will be Gateway...they have been holding on by their fingernails for too long, the big competition monster is going to stomp on their fingers and the name will fall away and eMachines will be their "brand".

Please note that this is in the desktop arena only...laptops, the last bastion of mainly proprietary hardware, still holds some decent profit margins for the manufacturers and laptops are really only on the uptrend...eventually they will become the platform of choice for PC users.

[spyder003]

Go-l computers will stay for sure!

[netnamakan]

I would say gateway for sure is going down.
can't say for the others.

havn't people realized that a even if a emachine is selling for $200 its still not worth it?

[mbossman2]

Originally Posted by netnamakan havn't people realized that a even if a emachine is selling for $200 its still not worth it?

eMachines is still a "consumer" brand only...Gartner only covers the business space.

I would anticipate consumer brand consolidation as well...

[Panama Red]

Since Gateway/E-machines and HP/Compaq are joint operations, I'd think each would drop one of their names in order to consolidate and be more profitable. I sell Toshiba Industrial Products and I don't see them getting out of the PC market. They seem to be expanding their lines. I'd sooner see Sony going bye-bye. If Dell were to change market strategy and begin to build with AMD processors instead of exclusively Intel, that would force out the strugglers sooner yet.

[Carl Price]

Originally Posted by netnamakan havn't people realized that a even if a emachine is selling for $200 its still not worth it?

Why do you say that? Do you realize that Emachines has been rated the computer least likely to give trouble? That rating was given by PC Magazine no less. August 17, 2004 issue has the article.

[netnamakan]

just said it out of first hand experience with them, maybe I just got the bad ones.

[Strider]

If I were to guess and of course I might be only one thinking this, but I think Gateway will go under even with the merger of Emachines. To me they seem always a step behind in introducing new products and from reviews I have read their HDTV TV's are horrible in picture quality.

[Pounder]

Maybe the reason Dell is so good is that they don't use AMD stuff, or do you think that Dell pays much for intel? They might have a agreement with intel to sell only with intel.

[Karthik1019]

What happened to Gateway? I don't doubt that they're gonna go under soon enough, but it seems, to me at least, that ten years ago or so and for a few years before that (early 1990's basically) everyone had Gateway 2000's with 486's in them. I was pretty young back then, but most of my friends still have old Gateways sitting around doing nothing. Did everyone really have Gateways or was it just that I was/am hanging around a bunch of crazy people?

[imbest123]

Originally Posted by Panama Red If Dell were to change market strategy and begin to build with AMD processors instead of exclusively Intel, that would force out the strugglers sooner yet.

Dell is going to start using AMD cpu's in their servers and high end gaming systems... http://overclockers.com/articles1142/

[jimmyrules712]

emachines is not going anywhere. Id say from what i have noticed, emachines PCs are almost hte 2nd most common around. They're cheap, but thats why people buy em. Its a hard calll because gateway bought emachines, and emachiens iwll be profitable but gateway still isnt going to make any on selling its own PCs, but can emachines keep gateway afloat?

[RayH]

China is going to challenge American brands in personal computers. The market is going to be Asia. The OS will not be Microsoft, but will be compatible.

America is cutting back in technology investment. We are shipping it overseas. India and China will come to dominate the world market in technology.

[mbossman2]

1st step:

http://www.newsobserver.com/business...-8230794c.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/041203/china_lenovo_ibm_1.html

Possible buyers include:

Lenovo (a Chinese Company)
Toshiba

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by Karthik1019 What happened to Gateway? I don't doubt that they're gonna go under soon enough, but it seems, to me at least, that ten years ago or so and for a few years before that (early 1990's basically) everyone had Gateway 2000's with 486's in them. I was pretty young back then, but most of my friends still have old Gateways sitting around doing nothing. Did everyone really have Gateways or was it just that I was/am hanging around a bunch of crazy people?

ive got 3 486's, 3 pentium IIs all gateways from back in the day.

[mc2phat]

Gateway's heyday was when they could make $400 plus profit on a desktop. I remember in 1995/96 all the military folks overseas were buying them. They'd ship APO/FPO, and the Exchange over there carried only the brand Packard Bell. Gateway beat their price, even with shipping. I knew several people that switched to Gateway because they were sick of the PB's crapping out on them. A dependant husband on base had a PC Doctor business and made a killing working on them. Once I got back to the states and started tinkering I wound up with quite a few PB's given to me. Remember the sound/modem combo card? Ick. I threw so many of those in the trash. I refused to try to deal with them.

The bottom dropped out of the PC market and Gateway's business plan couldn't cope. Dell was already diversified enough to make it. I look at their desktop prices now and I can only wonder if that division is kept around for name recognition only. I'd guess they make their profit in that sector with their "upgrades" and those 40 dollar ink cartridges they sell.
On another tangent, the Gateway stores' overhead was killing them, and they priced their service to try and make up for it. A family friend bought a Gateway 166 mHz system. They took it back in 2000 for a harddrive upgrade. The store techs slaved a 20 GB Seagate complete with BIOS overlay to the original drive and charged 350 dollars.
This post is strictly opinion, maybe I got something right.

[sataraid0]

Hmm, heard somewhere that emachines is already gone, gobbled up by Gateway????

[Panama Red]

Gateway did buy Emachines, but they've left the names totally separate. They have taken advantage of Emachines marketing though and are now making Gateway's available at Office Depot and, I think, Best Buy. Plus Emachines President is now the President or CEO of the combination of the two.

[bailey]

IBM went up for sale today, so say good-by to them.
thats the PC IBM's

[Karthik1019]

Originally Posted by RayH China is going to challenge American brands in personal computers. The market is going to be Asia. The OS will not be Microsoft, but will be compatible. America is cutting back in technology investment. We are shipping it overseas. India and China will come to dominate the world market in technology.

Not only is IBM's pc, including thinkpads, segment going up for sale, the prospective buyer is a Chinese company that starts with L, I don't quite remember its name right now. Infact, this Chinese company got its start in the early eigties by selling IBM products!!! It's kind of sad isn't it? It's a shame we can't retain all these markets that we created in the first place. Oh well, it seems like everything is going to China. Lets just hope we can hang on to Intel and the like.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Karthik1019 Not only is IBM's pc, including thinkpads, segment going up for sale, the prospective buyer is a Chinese company that starts with L, I don't quite remember its name right now. Infact, this Chinese company got its start in the early eigties by selling IBM products!!! It's kind of sad isn't it? It's a shame we can't retain all these markets that we created in the first place. Oh well, it seems like everything is going to China. Lets just hope we can hang on to Intel and the like.

thats funny.
where do you think all the chips and cpu's are made ?

[Karthik1019]

I know a lot of them are made in China and Taiwan or whatever, but we still technically "have" intel in America. We won't have any ibm pc's anymore....then again no will.... Okay....that doesn't really sound to convincing, but you know what I mean right?