Foxconn goes after the OEM market.

I smell something good going on.

I don't understand why anyone would buy Packard Bell. I realize that the company has very little to do with the former company that went under, but the name is so badly tainted, it's like spray-painting "works sometimes" on the windshield of a brand new car at a dealership.

Packard Hell. I remember all the times I spent arguing with their clueless tech support staff. Countless hours I'll never get back.

Packard Bell pulled out of the North American market due to the fact that it was having major production problems and they were loosing money in that market. Packard Bell in Europe was always a strong competitor and actually made good PCs...they did not go under.

I would bet you will still not see anything from PB in the US after the acquisition. Acer wants them for brand name recognition in Europe which Acer currently doesn't have there. Acer in the US is already a fairly big name as well as Gateway and they will probably compete in the same markets (all brands are making money unlike some of their competitors).

I hope Acer can pull this off without huge disruption. Integrating 3 large compaines could make them stronger in some areas(Dell purchasing Alienware), but it could also cause some huge problems with managment(HP buying Compaq)

Pentium 1 MMX processor goodness. Went through three OEM monitors. First one died after two years, second went perpetually pink after a week, and the third lasted till the computer landed itself at the electronic waste pickup held by my old town once a year. I was a kid when it was new; it was the top-of-the-line model complete with 2GB hard drive. Later added 8GB to that. Loved the whole animated interactive house-thing, "Packard Bell Navigator". Going through the "dungeon" in the left room kept me entertained. i think I still have that disc laying around somewhere. When it got demoted from family computer to my own personal one, I tried to install WinXP on it. It was uselessly slow. But I remember fondly the Win98 startup noise. Do-De-Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding...ding. Magic. Still couldn't play 3-D java games though. It was also the bottleneck when accessing broadband internet.