eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Two weeks after completing its acquisition of eMachines Inc., Gateway Inc. has rolled out a senior management team top-heavy with ex-eMachines executives.
Gateway also announced that a number of the people hired last year by the company to lead its transformation from primarily a PC maker to a branded integrator will be leaving. Included in that list are Joe Formichelli, its vice president of operations and a three-decade industry veteran with such companies as IBM and Toshibas Computer Systems Group, and Jocelyne Attal, a former IBM executive hired as executive vice president for business to oversee the companys push into the small and midsized business space.
Steve Phillips, Gateways senior vice president and CIO, also will leave the company, according to an announcement made by Gateway.
Though it was Gateway that bought eMachines for about $290 million, it appears to be eMachines that will set the tone for the companys future. Former eMachines CEO Wayne Inouye has assumed the same post at Gateway, with founder and former CEO Ted Waitt remaining as board chairman.
Adam Andersen, who served as executive vice president and chief operating officer at eMachines, will now be senior vice president and COO at Gateway. Bob Davidson, former executive vice president of global product planning, is senior vice president overseeing Gateways U.S. retail push.
In addition, Ed Fisher is Gateways senior vice president of product planning after coming over from eMachines as that companys senior vice president of global sales operations. John Goldsberry is going from eMachines CFO post to being senior vice president for business development at Gateway, and Greg Memo, senior vice president for platform development and operations at Gateway, had been eMachines executive vice president in the same space.
Also, Mike Zimmerman will be senior vice president for customer care, similar to the position he held at eMachines.
Still, not all Gateway executives will be filing out the door. Rod Sherwood will remain as senior vice president and CFO, and Scott Weinbrandt will be senior vice president, professional. He had been senior vice president and general manager of Gateways enterprise systems division and professional business services division.
Page Two
Roger Kay, an analyst with International Data Corp., said before the announcement that he didnt expect many of those executives hired by Gateway last year to stick around after the acquisition.
“I never considered many of these guys as longtimers,” said Kay, in Framingham, Mass. “A lot of those guys will end up with golden parachutes to spend time with their families.”
After Gateway closed the deal on eMachines March 11, spokesman Robert Sherbin said the company would take six weeks or so to sort out some of the larger issues facing the merged company—which now is the third largest PC manufacturer behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. Among those questions is whether the headquarters will remain in Poway, Calif., or move closer to Irvine, Calif., where eMachines was based.
There also is the question of whether Gateway will keep its 190 retails stores. Gateway executives last year said they planned to bulk up the stores to give customers a greater look at the growing number of consumer products—from digital cameras to plasma TV screens—being offered, and how they integrate together. They also said they would display their new enterprise offerings, from servers to storage devices.
But Kay and other industry observers said they expect the new company will shut down the stores, which can be expensive to maintain but dont always result in increased revenues. eMachines sells its systems through retail outlets like BestBuy.
“Different [Gateway] stores perform differently,” Kay said. “Gateway gets a lot of data about how individual stores have been performing, but I have to bet that some of their stores are real albatrosses. Even the best of them have been marginal.”