Gateway has stressed that partner feedback will be integral to its product development strategy and has given its nascent line-up to UK resellers to test.

The former retail PC brand was relaunched by new parent Acer in EMEA as a midmarket-focused outfit back in February, with the goal of recruiting 30 to 40 UK partners.

Philip Ashkar, managing director for the UK and Ireland at Gateway, revealed that its hardware and managed services are currently being tested by several resellers including Octavia and NS Optimum.

“We are taking the feedback and will implement it on our future product offerings. A lot are saying minimise pre-loads and are asking for more USB ports,” he said.
“We will implement the suggestions that are reasonable and make business sense.”

Gateway last week launched a remote management and monitoring suite for resellers, which Ashkar claimed would give it a key differentiator over rival PC vendors. The technology is based on Level Platforms’ Manager Workplace 2009 software.

Barry Dodhia, marketing manager at VAR Hemini, said: “If Gateway came knocking, I would say no for the simple reason that there are enough products on the market.”