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Gateway DESCRIPTION Gateway Title provides real estate title insurance and escrow closing services for residential and commercial property transactions. The company has some 35 offices throughout Southern California but also serves customers nationwide through its National Accounts Division. Offerings include property profiles and reports, appraisals, flood certificates, and title policies. Gateway Title began operating in Los Angeles in 1967 and was acquired by LandAmerica's Transnation Title Insurance Company (which provides underwriting services to the company) in 2003. DELL DESCRIPTION Encompassing products ranging from mice to mainframe computers, the computer hardware industry serves an equally wide range of customers -- from consumers purchasing PC peripherals to multibillion-dollar global corporations installing entire networks. Accordingly, industry players include companies that focus exclusively on enterprise or personal computing, as well as companies that successfully cater to both markets. Market definition plays a key role in a sector marked by frequent acquisitions, rapid spending swings, and bitter price wars. Highly diversified vendors like IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HP) bolster themselves against a volatile hardware market with product and market breadth. Not exclusive to the Western hemisphere, the bigger-is-better strategy is also practiced by Japanese conglomerates such as NEC, Fujitsu, and Toshiba. Having such diverse product lines not only provides some insurance, it also allows technology vendors to be one-stop shops for enterprise customers with equally diverse needs. This model might at first sound like the technology market's equivalent to Wal-Mart, but high-tech products require high-tech services, and these organizations include highly trained (and highly lucrative) armies of consultants and support staff. Of course such sprawling operations can also breed inefficiencies, and these companies must constantly evaluate the viability of every operation, weighing internal and external benefits.

Research

Gateway
DESCRIPTION

Gateway Title provides real estate title insurance and escrow closing services for residential and commercial property transactions. The company has some 35 offices throughout Southern California but also serves customers nationwide through its National Accounts Division. Offerings include property profiles and reports, appraisals, flood certificates, and title policies. Gateway Title began operating in Los Angeles in 1967 and was acquired by LandAmerica's Transnation Title Insurance Company (which provides underwriting services to the company) in 2003.

DELL
DESCRIPTION

Encompassing products ranging from mice to mainframe computers, the computer hardware industry serves an equally wide range of customers -- from consumers purchasing PC peripherals to multibillion-dollar global corporations installing entire networks. Accordingly, industry players include companies that focus exclusively on enterprise or personal computing, as well as companies that successfully cater to both markets. Market definition plays a key role in a sector marked by frequent acquisitions, rapid spending swings, and bitter price wars. Highly diversified vendors like IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HP) bolster themselves against a volatile hardware market with product and market breadth. Not exclusive to the Western hemisphere, the bigger-is-better strategy is also practiced by Japanese conglomerates such as NEC, Fujitsu, and Toshiba. Having such diverse product lines not only provides some insurance, it also allows technology vendors to be one-stop shops for enterprise customers with equally diverse needs. This model might at first sound like the technology market's equivalent to Wal-Mart, but high-tech products require high-tech services, and these organizations include highly trained (and highly lucrative) armies of consultants and support staff. Of course such sprawling operations can also breed inefficiencies, and these companies must constantly evaluate the viability of every operation, weighing internal and external benefits.