 
I first saw the Gallaudet Website in early January, 2000, and two things immediately struck me.
First, we've got a brand that people just naturally
love. And that's not an exaggeration.
Our famous cow-spotted box draws people in
and tells them we're approachable, human and connected, so much so that they can have some
fun with it... build animals with it... design a Website around it.
That's a rare and invaluable asset in today's world of cold, steely technology brands, particularly as the Internet fans out and becomes simpler and more accessible every day.
It's almost as if the Gateway brand was designed 15 years ago with the coming Internet revolution in mind.
And, of course, I was struck by the obvious metaphor that serves as the basis of this entire annual report. Like us, these young builders see the box as just the means to an end, a path to a greater destination that's limited only by imagination.
With those two thoughts in my mind, it was hard to look back at 1999 as anything but a great year. It was a year that we took our already strong brand to new heights and laid the foundation for our unique beyond-the-box future.
And along the way, we worked hard to deliver solid financial results. We increased revenues by 16%–about three times the industry growth rate–and grew earnings per share by 25%. We delivered on our promise to diversify our revenue streams beyond the box, exiting 1999 with 20% of our income generated from nonsystem revenues, versus just 3% in the fourth quarter of 1998.
And, in the end, we delivered very healthy returns to our shareholders, as Gateway's stock ended the year 170% higher than it began.
But 2000 is the year that we prove that Gateway looks at the world differently; that we have a unique position in the marketplace; and that, once and for all, we've got the capability to deliver on our vision of the future.
That vision is to Humanize the Digital Revolution, and from a practical standpoint, that means using technology to change the way people live, learn, work and play.
This year, we're going to take our world-class technology and the unparalleled beyond-the-box capabilities we've worked so hard to build, and bring them to life in new and interesting ways for our clients.
I call it "technology empowerment," using technology to help people and businesses reach higher, do more and go places they've never been.
For example, our innovative Your:)WareSM program will be reborn with fresh bundling offers around solutions like digital photography, on-line financial planning and music downloading, among others.
We'll begin introducing our first wave of Internet appliances to deliver content and applications against very specific needs, all tied together to make the Internet as mobile as today's consumer.
We'll offer our small business clients end-to-end Internet-based solutions that grow with their business through applications like Web hosting, firewall protection and e-mail.
We're also going to take our unique, multichannel distribution model and really beef it up across all channels, extending our brand into literally thousands more points of distribution worldwide.
We'll accomplish all of these tasks both through building our own capabilities and through partnering with best-of-class companies around the world.
To sum it up, 2000 is the year of the "how." This is the year that we take all of our beyond-the-box capabilities and show people how technology can truly change the way they live, learn, work and play.
This is the year we solidify our lifelong relationships with our clients on both the business and consumer fronts – relationships that will fuel our growth in a way that's far more profitable than anything we've seen before.
And when you think about it, that's the vision that Ted Waitt had when he founded Gateway 15 years ago. Sure, we might have started out as a direct, built-to-order PC maker, but Ted's vision was always much bigger than that. The PC was never the end, it was the means. The PC was always just a tool – our first tool – for showing people a world that's filled with possibilities and opportunities.
On that note, I'll close by thanking Ted, our founder and Chairman, for establishing a brand, a vision and a set of values that have been the cornerstone of the incredible Gateway success story. Equally important, that brand and vision and those values will serve as our compass, pointing us to where we're heading in the future.
And I'm more excited than ever about that future, thanks to the many new tools that our beyond-the- box strategy has yielded. This is the year that we put those tools to work and make 2000 an even better year for our clients, shareholders and employees.
Jeff Weitzen
President and
Chief Executive Officer
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