LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ted Waitt
built 656 days ago
Though Ted Waitt had his sights on selling PCs, that was not the business he and Hammond started in September 1985. Until the end of 1987, they called themselves the TIPC Network -- set up as a division of the company Waitt dreamed about starting, Gateway 2000. As such, they sold add-on equipment by mail to owners of PCs made by Texas Instruments. The niche seemed obvious to Waitt: the store where he and Hammond had worked sold Texas Instruments computers but didn't support them in the aftermarket, since the company did not adhere to the industry standard set by IBM. With his phone operation, run from an Iowa farm, Waitt could undercut competitors' prices significantly. Within a few months, the direct-mail venture was bringing in $100,000.
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Remember those TV commercials when Ted Waitt took over at Gateway again? They made him out to be the savior of the company and lots of people started comparing what he might do to Gateway with what Steve Jobs did to turn around Apple. It might have been a little early. So far, most people haven't seen much to indicate a turnaround at Gateway, and analysts are starting to get restless. Waitt puts on a optimistic face for the interview conducted here, but he's going to have to get more creative than EverCrack PCs if they want to stand out from Dell.
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Following Gateway's calamitous Q4 results, the company's founder Ted Waitt reclaimed the helm as chief executive officer. Since Waitt's departure a year ago, the company was commanded by Jeff Weitzen and continued to show growth until the most recent quarter when the entire PC market was hit by a sudden slump in US consumer demand. Relying on the US consumer market as its primary focus, Gateway suffered more than its rivals registering an 80,000 decline in Q4 shipments compared to a year ago. This translated to a dismal $94.3 million loss in revenue and a decline in US market share (9.3% in 4Q99 compared to 8.1% in 4Q00). While a slowdown in consumer sales was perhaps tolerable due to the overall market situation, declining market share was apparently too much for Waitt to bear and the likely cause for Weitzen's unceremonious departure.
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Ted Waitt was born in Sioux City, Iowa, into a family that had been in the cattle business for four generations. After a reportedly wild period in high school (during which he failed computer science), he ended up at the University of Iowa majoring in marketing. During a trip to Des Moines with some friends he met someone who worked for the computer retailer Century Systems. Intrigued, Waitt decided to drop out of school and learn the computer business on the job. During his nine months with Century Systems, he learned the basics and became fascinated by the fact that some of his colleagues could sell $3–thousand systems over the phone, without ever meeting the customer. Together with Mike Hammond, a fellow salesman, Waitt hatched a plan to start his own company, focusing initially on a niche market of Texas Instruments computer owners.
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Founded by Ted Waitt, co-founder of the Gateway Computer Corporation, the Waitt Family Foundation's Technology Resource Center is dedicated to empowering communities and enabling them to participate fully in the digital information age. Mercy Corps International, initially founded in 1979 as Save the Refugees Fund, exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided over $450 million in assistance to people in more than 68 countries.
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For his part, Waitt touted the new team's ability to do what Weitzen and Todd couldn't: react quickly to deteriorating demand. "My number one job was to get a team in place that I felt could succeed in this environment," he said. "A faster, more aggressive, more experienced team." Waitt vowed to fight for market share by cutting prices. He vowed to control expenses by reexamining any additional store openings the previous team had planned. He vowed to maintain "a maniacal focus on customer satisfaction and quality."
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Ted Waitt