Trains passing in the night:
This news is a little old, but still worth talking about. On March 31st Sony announced they will open new retail outlets across the country. The next day, Gateway announced it is shutting down their stores.

I don't think I have ever seen two firms that are competing in the same industry taking exactly opposite strategies at almost the exact same time. So what forces are working to cause these two firms to head in opposite directions?... let me take a stab at it.

Gateway's recent purchase of eMachines has resulted in a new management team at Gateway which is being headed up by the former CEO of eMachines, Wayne Inouye. Before eMachines, Wayne was a VP at Best Buy and is certainly sensitive to issues of channel conflict that have kept Gateway products out of Best Buys and other major CE retailers. So Wayne's decision to shut down the retail stores (which were losing money anyway) and get back to a more basic distribution strategy seems to fit with his background.

So what would explain Sony's actions? Well, Sony is Sony, meaning they have such power in the market that retailers like Best Buy can't credibly threaten them when channel conflict arises. Sony actually has so much power it was able to get concessions from WAL-MART last summer when they came to a distribution deal. Sony views their new retail outlets as a chance to demo their products in an integrated fashion... which more consumers will care about as CE product interoperate.

While each firm is taking a strategy contradictory to the other's, I would argue that each strategy is appropriate given each firm's place in the market. Only time will tell on this one, but give the major changes at Gateway, I would not count them out yet.