RSSNEC Confirms Packard Bell Sale
By Ed Oswald | Published October 16, 2006, 3:13 PM
NEC confirmed that it was exiting the European PC market, announcing it had reached a deal to sell its Netherlands-based Packard Bell subsidiary to Chinese entrepreneur Lap Shun "John" Hui. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hui attempted to purchase the retail operations of Gateway earlier this year, however his offer was rejected. He was co-founder of discount PC maker eMachines, which Gateway acquired in 2004 for $264 million.
Although a popular brand of computers in for a short period of time in the mid 1990s worldwide, Packard Bell quickly was eclipsed by competitors, mainly for a reputation of lackluster quality and poor customer support.
By the end of the decade, it pulled out of the U.S. market completely. It was also at that time that it first signaled its intentions to sell, however a deal was not completed until September of this year, when the New York Times first reported NEC was planning to sell to Hui.
"NEC decided it would be in the best interests of both PB and NEC to sell Packard Bell to Mr. Hui, who has extensive experience in the consumer personal computer business and is well positioned to facilitate the future growth of Packard Bell's business," the company said in a statement.
It is not immediately clear what plans Mr. Hui has for the Packard Bell brand, or whether it could signal a resurgence of a brand that was once the top-selling desktop computer in the U.S. market. However, Hui's recent moves indicate he may be looking to re-enter the desktop computer business.
As a former customer support rep for Packard Bell, IMHO their lackluster quality came from their using refurbished parts, and for poor customer service -- how many people want to work for a company who's customer's favorite words for the rep are "F--- You!" When we are told to tell them to "Format and Restore" for every problem.
I can still walk a user through a DOS 'fdisk' in my sleep -- I haven't worked for them in 10 years.
Let them go under, not all things from the past are good!!!
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Bye bye Packard Bell, I will miss you. I loved servicing your equipment when I worked for Computer City back in 1996 and 1997. You did have a great piece of equipment too bad it didn't last.
Where can you get packard bell equipment these days? Not sure if they produce anything valuable in USA.
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I got a packard bell in 94' and I loved it. Was I wrong for that? It was a P90 with I think 16mb of ram, a soundcard + modem in one and a cd player, 8x I think. I had so much fun with it, and I loved the Packard Bell navigator which was this OS Shell dumbed down into a complete 'room' of stuff to click in order to get stuff done. They even sent me a windows 95 upgrade cd. Ah well...those were the days.
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What perceived value is there in the name Packard-Bell??
Or are they going to market another iPod clone and make a run at Apple too?
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Word of advice, Hui--CHANGE THE NAME. Just hearing the words "Packard Bell" again send chills up my spine!
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Why pay big money for a name and then change it?
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More or less than $12.00?
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