Gateway is returning to the UK and Europe as a brand focused on the needs of medium-sized business customers. It aims to differentiate itself by delivering a tightly focused set of products backed by managed IT support services.

The Gateway brand is now owned by Acer, the third largest PC vendor worldwide and the second largest in Europe. While Gateway will continue to sell to consumers in the US, it will be purely focused on the professional market in the EMEA region and will sell solely via dealer channels, the company said.

"We will offer to the professional market real effective solutions for their needs," said Antonio Papale, director of the Gateway Division in EMEA.

He added that the company's strategy will be to offer a limited portfolio of models that meet customer needs, backed by IT support services delivered over the web.

Gateway sees the dealer channel as key to its success. Kevin O'Donoghue, product business manager, explained that Acer had a great deal of engineering expertise at the back end, but that the dealers had more knowledge of what their customers wanted.

"We want our channel partners to have a direct influence on development of our line-up," he said.

As part of this strategy, Gateway will host a set of managed services that will enable dealers to offer customers remote monitoring and management of the systems they sell, adding value in what has otherwise become a commodity market.

"A lot of IT staff time is wasted just fixing common problems and in maintenance. What value does this have? None. If a dealer can take this burden away from them, they can focus on running their business," said O'Donoghue.

The initial Gateway line-up will consist of three laptops and desktops. The laptops are the NO20 with a 12.1in display and the NO50 and NS50 with 15.4in displays, while the desktop line-up is the DU10, DS10 and DT10, in small form factor (SFF), desktop and tower chassis, respectively. All the desktops are quad-core Intel-based models.

In the second quarter of this year, the line-up will be expanded with three dual-Xeon servers, 19in and 22in monitors and availability of the managed services.

The launch of a new PC vendor in the midst of the current economic climate is a risk, but Acer seems to be taking a long-term view about its investment in the Gateway brand.

When asked when Gateway expected to show a profit, O'Donoghue said: "You can't measure success or failure within six months or even a year on something like this."

He added that the company "wanted to become a visible player" within the European business market.

Gateway, formerly Gateway 2000, was a prominent PC vendor in the UK during the latter half of the 90s, rivalling Dell in sales volumes. Following the dot-com slump, the company abruptly pulled the plug on its UK and Ireland operations. O'Donoghue said he did not think the company would be adversely affected by past events.

"We pulled out of Europe, but seem to have kept a neutral brand perception," he said.