Gateway Computers has confirmed it will close its Irish, British, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and African operations following completion of a consultation process with local staff.
Gateway, which issued its 900 Dublin-based workers with redundancy notices last month, said yesterday it would close its Dublin headquarters by the end of the fourth fiscal quarter of 2001.
A Gateway spokeswoman also confirmed that negotiations to conclude redundancy packages had been finalised with its Irish staff.
Confirmation of Gateway's decision to pull out of most international markets and concentrate on the US came as a leading computer consultancy firm warned of further gloom for the PC industry.
International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast that sales of personal computers would slump almost 10 per cent this year, down from current predictions of a levelling off in demand. This decline would mark the first year-on-year drop in personal computer sales since 1986.
Falling consumer PC shipments in the United States and Japan were a major factor in the downward revision in the forecast by the US-based firm, one of the world's leading trackers of PC market trends.
The sharply lower forecast also reflects IDC's growing belief that the hoped for seasonal pick-up in personal computer sales will not materialise later this year. Consumer sales have traditionally been boosted by strong end-of-year holiday purchases in the United States and other industrial nations.
Beset by maturing growth rates in industrialised nations, and signs of weak consumer spending on big-ticket items such as PCs in major markets, consumer PC shipments could decline by 9.6 percent in 2001, well below the 0.2 per cent drop IDC had seen.
Last week Hewlett-Packard and Compaq announced the world's largest IT merger, signalling they could save $2.5 billion (€2.8 billion) by cutting jobs and streamlining production.
Gateway's Irish employees have been offered redundancy packages worth six weeks for every year of service, plus bonus payments. This would amount to between £10,000 (€12,700) to £20,000 for most staff.
