In 1997, I bought a state-of-the-art Pentium II Gateway desktop direct from the manufacturer. I was proud of myself at the time for going direct and customizing the system according to my desired specifications.

But today, more than 10 years later, Gateway (now owned by Acer) has dropped its 1990s way of doing business and will concentrate on retail, e-tail and channel. Wasn't the Internet supposed to be the hip way to sell PCs? How things come full circle.

According to Gateway, the change in strategy should help the company cut costs.

Gateway began moving in this direction when it acquired retail PC vendor eMachines in 2004 and ran the short-lived Gateway Country store chain.