Packard Bell is a Dutch-registered computer manufacturing brand and subsidiary of Acer. Originally an American radio set manufacturer, Packard Bell Corporation, it was founded by Herbert A. Bell and Leon S. Packard in 1933. In 1986, Israeli investors bought the brand from Teledyne which had taken it over much earlier. The investors wanted to name their newly formed personal computer manufacturing company producing discount computers to the United States and Canada market. In the late 1990s, Packard Bell became a subsidiary of Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC. In 2000, Packard Bell stopped its North American operations and became a leading brand in the European PC and laptop markets. In 2008 the brand was acquired by the Taiwanese consumer electronic firm Acer in the aftermath of Acer's takeover of Gateway, Inc. Acer arranged so that Gateway products are sold in the Americas and Asia, while Packard Bell products are sold in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and Acer branded products worldwide. History Early history (1986–1996) In 1986, Beny Alagem, Larry Metz and a group of other Israeli investors bought the American former radio and television set brand Packard Bell from Teledyne and resurrected it as a manufacturer of low-cost personal computers. Their computers were among the first IBM PC compatibles sold in retail chains such as Sears. According to Fortune magazine, Packard Bell sometimes benefited from misplaced name recognition, with consumers (especially first-time computer buyers) and even some salespeople erroneously associating the company with others of a similar name, such as Hewlett-Packard, Pacific Bell, and Bell Laboratories. The confusion was further facilitated by Packard Bell's then-current slogan, "America grew up listening to us. It still does." The company also sold nearly identical systems under different names, making comparison difficult. Aside from low price and brand confusion, Packard Bell's success in number of units sold may have come from two areas of innovation: 1) branding and industrial design, provided by the San Francisco offices of frog design; and 2) its boot-up shell Packard Bell Navigator, created by The Pixel Company in Seattle. They targeted a huge section of consumers who were inexperienced using computers. Frog design gave the look of quality and utilized innovations such as color-coding cable connectors, while Navigator provided the ability for users to launch installed programs by clicking on-screen buttons, and then later a house metaphor. During this phase, returns dropped from 19% to 10%, and sales grew