It is very unlikely.

Gateway was always a follower, not a leader. It followed Dell into custom manufacturing, but while Dell moved into computers-as-capital-goods (selling servers and business systems), Gateway followed home computing down the consumer electronics rathole. (The illustration is courtesy CertifiedInstructors, a training school.

Its differentiator became its stores, which morphed into consumer electronics palaces, but they lacked the buying power of Best Buy and the cost control of Wal-Mart -- they never had a chance.

Ted Waitt's latest move has been to buy eMachines to lower his cost of goods, and to close the stores in favor of Web retailing. He might as well hang the "going out of business" sign.

The fact is that Web retailing is becoming just like running a physical store, only more so because there's just one mall and we're all driven by price, nothing else. By taking eMachines Gateway loses its independence completely, tieing himself to Taiwanese business models that lack innovation.

The next sound you hear, I suspect, will be Gateway being sold to someone Chinese.

The only way for a PC maker to survive is by staying ahead of Moore's Law. This means investing in true innovation, in order to keep prices high. Gateway was never about that. I'll miss their cows, and I know many will miss their jobs, but business doesn't deal in sentiment. If you're not racing ahead you're falling behind. Gateway has fallen and I don't think it can get up.