TED WAITT’S EXIT FROM GATEWAY’S BOARD UNDERSCORES THE REALITY facing the PC maker: It needs Chief Executive Wayne Inouye more than the other way around.
Inouye, who turned around Irvine’s eMachines and sold it to Gateway a year ago, came out on top of the combined company, moving it from San Diego to Irvine and installing his own team.
But the shift wasn’t without delicacies. Founder Waitt, who ran Gateway for much of its 20 years, remained a big shareholder. And Waitt stepped back once before, in 1999, only to fire his replacement and take back the reins a year later.
Now former chairman Waitt’s parting closes an era for Gateway, and the PC business. A folksy, homespun company can’t compete with Dell, HP and China’s Lenovo. Inouye’s model of outsourced production and piggybacking on big retailers is Gateway’s only hope.
,Michael Lyster
