I didn’t see this coming (or maybe I just missed the talk about this if there was any). But a quick look over at Crunchgear this morning revealed a little but big merger.

Acer now owns Gateway

Yep thats right, Gateway, the number 4 PC maker has been acquired by the popular Notebook/laptop maker Acer for $710 million. I knew Gateway had been slippin in the past years and had been making sort of a comeback but I wouldnt have guessed they would’ve been bought out just yet. I especially would’nt thought they would’ve went for more than $710m. But it has happened, and the Acer/Gateway merger will make them the number 3 PC maker (behind Dell and HP).

Acer as you all know have made plenty of laptops, some of which have been really good machines, some of which are the more affordable laptops that Ive talked about here before. They also make the high end Ferrari notebook PC’s, and a few desktop models.

Gateway as you know was a early leader in the home PC market, then fell off a little. They were starting to make a bit of a comeback, acquiring Emachines. Gateway also make a few well reviewed Notebook computers, some I have talked about here also.

Together it is estimated that the company will be worth more than $15 billion in revenues

Read more about it at Notebooks.com