Back to school computer buying season…and Gateway looks for a rebound. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. With its acquisition of discount computer maker Emachines…Gateway is now headed by the man who had been on top at Emachines…Wayne Inouye. And while the company continues to lose money, Inouye says it will return to profitability next year. To do it….Gateway is showing up in retail stores….like the Best Buy chain…where it will challenge Hewlett Packard. A new line of desktop PCs will include dual layer DVD burners. And Chad McDonald, the senior manager of the consumer notebook line, says there will be just two basic models in that category…

"The new M520 and our M320. The M520 is our desktop replacement notebook, which is a notebook with big screens, fast processors, large amounts of RAM, big hard drives. Those sorts of things. The M320 is a true thin and light notebook. Typically that buyer is someone who has used a notebook before."

Who knows the value of longer battery life….and lighter weight. The company will continue selling computers under separate Gateway and EMachines brands. But Gateway prices are pushing lower…into Emachines type territory…with desktops for as little as 450 dollars…and notebooks for under 900 dollars. To do that…the cost cutting continues. Gateway will end the year with fewer than two thousand employees…fourteen hundred fewer than at the end of June. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.