Dell to buy Alienware. Really?

[deweycd]

I say keep them seperate, Alienware = good, Dell = bad. Mix the two and your just going to get mediocre

 

[Phil-M-Tech]

If Dell wants to get into the "hardcore gaming" arena then he needs to fire the n00b experts and yes-men he has standing around him telling him that hes doing the right thing. Dell needs to rethink his whole market strategy; if he's going to sell to the "hardcore" market then Dell is going to have to take the proprietory and unupgradable cr4p out of his machines. Certainly Dell knows that "hardcore gamers" will build their own computer rather than blow $3000+ on an XPS, Voodoo, or Alienware.

Even if he does buy Alienware who cares? If anything the customer support would be good for Alienware and perhaps some respect might come to the XPS if it adopts Alienware standards, but do I see any important gain by either company? No.

As for AMD, Dell is an idiot not to have already started using AMD processors in his computers. I don't care what kind of contract he has with Intel, if he did go with AMD no way would Intel say no to Dell using both companies because THEY rely on Dell. Not the other way around.

AMD is already proved they have equal if not better quality products than Intel and they sure seem to be leading the pace in R&D and efficiency of their products. Don't believe me? Hey DELL!! Why don't you have your so-called "analyst experts" take a look a see how much market share your precisious Intel is losing to AMD and how much AMD growing financially?

Horrible way to run a business if you ask me.

End,
M-Tech out.

 

[Rustol3um]

I wouldn't ever buy a Dell or an Alienware, so it makes no difference.

Agreed......who wants a dell or alienware anyways? but from a business perspective I guess it makes since for dell but I really don't see this changing the fact that a good portion of hardcore gamers would never have either do to the fact that we like building our own......

 

[CompGeek]

It's benfeficial for Dell.
They'll probably make a gaming section where there will be more AMDs than Intels. This would increase sales so get them more profit. Dell is already owning a LOT of molah but more would be always welcomed.

 

[qurious69ss]

Dell is for squares. Real geeks build their rigs.

 

[PCtech]

lol geeks being the words guys well for a start alienware pc are a totally rip off, second dell dont use cheap parts(samsung kingston, sony intel, sharp) cheap parts eh guys) prob the strongest cases and best built cases on the market.
Also Dell 24 inch flat screen is the best and cheapest on the market fact!!!!
And a third and finally point is in 10 yrs dell will be the only pc manufacture out there.(And yes i do work for Dell in ireland) Irish built is better built 😛) 😛

 

[chuckshissle]

Yeah alienware is mostly name but you can buy Alienware stickers for your pc! I've actually found some companies better than alienware. For the same setup with 7800gtx 512 sli it about $2000 less than of that of Alienware's. But people still buy alienware I guess for bragging rights of spending more money than it actually cost.

 

[Gazza]

Well i think for Dell it would be good and for Intell to suply high end chips they already have the small buisnes market when people are unsure about brand or produck they go for secuity and go Dell but they never got into the realy high end of computing so adding Alianware they can cover evry aspect of computing
Dell Intel and Apple and now for a foursome Alienware seems to cover a big slice of the market
Anyway smart buiness go for it I will still order my parts and make my computers
I like to play doctor frankinstiennnnnnn he he heeee its aboy
ITS A MONSTERRRRRRRRR
lol
PS i was readin up on Microsoft they are becomeing more and more Auto with there soft ware soon we will have no choice and all buy the computer already made with parts you dont want and now have what you do and choose on the net monetered and pre choose for you
I like to make things and fix and explore
Buggar gettin to serius KEEP it cool man go burseco with some parts :- )
Gazza

 

[eyimbo]

no no no, i really DO NOT like this at all! dell is dell always using 2nd grade stuff. If ailenware is Ferrari then Dell is Ford. If Ford brought Ferrari and then desolved it then i think i'd probably kill myself.

 

[g-paw]

This would make a lot of sense as does the car company analogy but it will only work if Dell or any other manufacturer gives the high end company a great deal of autonomy. First, it allows them to go into another market segment. No matter what Ford offers under the Lincoln brand, it will never have the cachet of Jaguar. As been pointed out, it allows Dell to bring in a lot of people with experience with AMD. Dell has the experience with mass production while Alienware has the experience with AMD. Maybe most importantly, Alienware could become the R & D division of Dell. Car companies have racing as a way of developing and testing new technology and high-end gaming plays a similar role in computers. I think in the next 5 years or so there will be major changes in both the PC and laptop both as a result of new hardware technology and software. SATA, PCI e, SLI and Crossfire, and dual core are examples of hardware. From everything I’ve read about Vista it appears it will nor only demand more resources but will be better able to take advantage of the new hardware technology. And other software innovation will follow. Integrating and taking advantage of this new technology will require an enormous R & D effort especially making it affordable. There really has been little reason for your average computer users including businesses to upgrade hardware. A 4-year-old 2.4 GHz P4 will handle anything the average user throws at it. If Vista delivers the performance increases reported and requires more resources as well as takes advantage of the new technology, the demand for new computers will significantly increase in the next 5 years or so because people will need these upgrades but as noted, there will be a lot of R & D needed. This will have very little direct impact on those of use that build their own PCs other than the long term benefits of the R & D and the new hardware and software it will refine and create.

 

[jphillips1868]

My intial reaction is that this will bad for Alienware. I will be in the market for a new PC in the next six months and was leaning toward purchasing one from Alienware, but if this deal goes through I am look elsewhere.

 

[WOWchamp]

This whole thing is garbage. Alienware is overpriced and Dell is just about as dumb as dumb gets.

Alienware on average charges 30-50% MORE then the parts retail for. Dell has no idea how to build computers, they shiped a Dimension 1100 to my uncle with only 256MB of ram. I understand it was a customizable line and he could have had it ship with atleast 512 in it but he knows nothing about computers and thats besides the point. No computer with windows XP should be sold with less then 512MB of ram. Even for an office computer....

Alienware is just too easy to bash... their priceing is all that needs be said. That and the fact you cant customize your motherboard anymore.

Couple all those facts together with the growing console industry and you have yourself one nice problem if you have a company focused on selling pre built computers (higher end ones mostly).

If you remotely know how to build a system then your much much better off just doing it on your own. Even if you damage something(s) you will still save money this route. That and im pretty sure no pre built systems allow you to overclock.



ON the original subject... If Dell does buy alienware they could make a killing if they could lower the Alienware MSRP. Like you guys have said they are sitting on a ton of capital and lowering the MSRP by 15% wouldnt hurt them at all... just cut into Alien's profits slightly. But then again more units are likely to sell and that puts Aliens name in more places.

 

[CompGeek]

yes but there are exceptions.
1. When talking about laptops
2. Special offers that sometimes(very rarely of course) make a good bargain.
But yeah,real geeks build their rigs especially gaming ones.

 

[pengwin]

Alien has a bad customer service reputation. If anything Dell would improve this 100%.

Cost wise their top of the line model runs close to $8000.00 of which broken down component wise could be had for about 3000.00 if you wanted to spend that much. You could do it for even lower if you did not want all the bells and whistles.

Alien has a kick ass product. AMD happens to be one of their main suppliers for CPU and they have Nvidia as their major GPU supplier.

Rahul is creating this buzz just to get change market dynamics. Alien in a Dell Business plan means lower prices. That way those who want to spend the big bucks on his product can do so with snobish appeal. Like Rolex vs Timex.

no it wont have a lower price because Alienware doesnt less to the average joe they have pretty much a monopoly on the gaming pre-built PC's, first off u pay $500 for their case

now if the prices did go down they would still be high for the average person and thats why prices wont go down they seem to be making money so why drop th eprices even lower

 

[Ratbait]

Alien does not have a monopoly on the pre built gaming market, at their costs how can the average gamer afford them? Most look at what they got and can build for less. There are other manufacturers that can build the exact same machine for a lot less and are just as much in the game as Alien. You havent heard of them but they exist. Look at any gamer mag. Because Alien charges so much they can afford to advertise.

Dell coming in with their big bankroll could start a faster mass production of them. Causing a lowering of the cost to build and inturn lowering the cost to customer. The fact that they can do that is exactly what the other botique builders want. With Alien out of their "League" there is less competition for those who want to overspend for a rig. How many botique builders can you count? Think they arent hoping it gets smaller?

 

[pip_seeker]

I guess we're giving up on the Dell switching to Amd rumour.....Ok let's try the Dell buying Alienware which uses Amd rumour yeah that's it. Why does this guy have such a hardon for Dell using Amd. You know hp, lenovo, and gateway use amd, so let's just let it be and move on. Just move on it's oooooooooook.

Well and the opposite could be said of Dell. "Why does Dell have a hardon for Intel?"

Amd is a PC processor that works with Windows. Unless Dell believes that having less choices is better for the consumer then that's... OK.

But the recent news is that Intel is getting handed it's a$$ in a tin cup. {keep the change 😛 }

So now with this recent news out maybe Dell is starting to feel even more "Pressure" and because of the statements a while ago.... going to AMD on their own now would make them look... shall we say, mmm stupid.

I guess with all that money they got they can afford to be stupid for awhile. :roll:

 

[Caboose-1]

From a business and consumer standpoint I would have to say that this is a good idea. But from a personal standpoint, I don't care.

 

[PCtech]

For all ye know it alls here a bit of info for u,
1Amd started out by infringing copyright and ripping off intel
2If u buy Amd u better pray and hope ur heatsink/cooling system doesnt fail cause ****bang**** any1 for fried chip, intel will shut off.
3Dell dont use second grade stuff ive had every make of pc and the only 1 not to give trouble is a dell(sony, sharp, samsung, lg, intel, ati, nvida, western digtal, kingston) all the crap parts there all right.
4.) if u build ur own and parts fail it will take u weeks/months to get the prob sorted out dell 24-72 hours(depending on warranty).
5 Alienware are the biggest rip off pimp my pc lol kinda sad really stickers on ur pc 3k well worth it.
6Reason dell use nothing but intel is cause they own shares in each other
7I'm a dell employee and gaming is about 1/2% of their sales 57 million systems sold last yr but i will buy what pc is the best and i have made built my own pcs many times.

 

[pengwin]

yah the last one....

becuas edumbasses cant build their own gaming rig so they buy an XPS for 3000 bucks get a gig of ram and a 6600GT

 

[crazypyro]

7I'm a dell employee and gaming is about 1/2% of their sales 57 million systems sold last yr but i will buy what pc is the best and i have made built my own pcs many times.

no wonder you say this 😛 . no i will give it to Dell they build a good cheap business computer. But there home systems are crap. I can't count on both hands how manny people i know who bought a Dell then had the system take a fat load on there chest after 3months or so. Its ridiculous. The only system that last strong for me was an eMachine before Gateway bought them, that system ran for 8months before it started dieing on me.

Dell Business = good for corporations
Dell Consumer = terrible quality

 

[k2000k]

One thing we can all agree on, the actual impact on buying Alienware will be minimal for Dell because of the prohibitive mark ups. I can understand a computer compnay marking up 25% they need to recoup the costs and gain a little profit, people who freak out because a business marks a product up need to grow up and enter the real world. But marking up 30-50% is extreme, especially without any REAL benefiet. If someone was given a long warranty and great customer service then maybe, but thats not likely. People like to single apart Dell as a horrid computer compnay, there are some legit reasons. But saying that Dell is dumber than dumer, well thats failing to look at market share. All retail computer manufacters are horrid if you think about it. Toshiba intentionally ships faulty products, and will delay recieving your product for replacement/repair until after the warranty expires. HP builds pretty good Biz computers but the price tag is large. Fujistu well its meh with meh everything else. Sony, my friend has an old viao that is still working, but Sony's practices as of late of turned me off to them. In the end Dell's major fault is shipping computers that cannot be upgraded. All retail manufacters need to be shaken up a bit.

 

[cherrion]

I emailed Alienware about the romours. Here is the reply I got.

Dear Christopher Gorman

Thank you for contacting Alienware!

With regard to your inquiry, we have no confirmed information on any transaction of that nature, and at this point what you're hearing is pure speculation. If there is going to be any like transaction, we will of course have that information posted and an announcement made.

Please do not hesitate to contact Alienware on 0800 279 9751if you have any additional questions or concerns. Our office hours are from 9am to 7pm (GMT) on weekdays and from 9am to 3pm on Saturdays.

Thank you for choosing ALIENWARE.

UK Customer Service Team

Alienware Ltd.
Free Phone: 0800-279 9751
International Phone: 00 353-906-456-500
Fax: 00 353-906-486-967
www.alienware.co.uk


As a loyal Alienware customer I done think alienware would sell up anyway. It is okay dell wanting to by them. But alienware have to want to sell. And dell would runi the company. Alienware use standard pc parts where as dell make every part except the CPu. if they introduced that to alienware it would ruin them.

Dont believe these stupid roumours. This is like Inel announcing that they just bought AMD.


I own an Area-51 3500 and the build quality is fantastic. You actually havr to look hard to find the wires. It is the most reliable pc I have ever owned and the one problem I have had was due to Symantec and their bloody interet security.

I am happy with it and I feel that you are not only paying for the name, but you are paying for the excellant service and support I have experienced. I would also like to point out that I am talking about the UK alienware. The total cost for my system was £1038.14. Hey I could have built a better one for less, but I dont really care. I would easuily reccommened them over dell or quality, service and reliability any day.

 

[Smiley]

One of the major reason why I didn't buy a Dell the last time I bought a laptop was simply because they did not offer any AMD-based laptops. 8)

 

[Propain666]

Rahul Sood, founder of enthusiast PC company VoodooPC, has floated a few days ago the idea that Dell may be warming up to AMD by acquiring Alienware.

We've done a bit more reserach into this topic and while we couldn't get any hard evidence for such a deal as of now, it appears that Sood may not be far off.

What do you guys think? Does it make Dell more attractive? Or Alienware PCs less attractive?

Looking forward to reading your posts!

Alienware is a total rip. I can put the same PC together for about $1,000 less than they charge.

$1,000 for a flashy case with an alien head on it and LED's everywhere? You can keep it.


As far as Dell buying Alienware, It probably wont change things at all. They will still offer high end PC's with interchangeable hardware, it will just be filling Dell's pockets rather than whoever owns Alienware currently.

 

[SuperFly03]

$1000 markup on a PC isn't that bad. Think about what they have to fund with that $1000, marketing? support? replacement hardware? expansion? r&D (so to speak)?

You sacrafice alot building your own system but you also gain alot, as with everythign its a trade off and whats best for you. Personaly I like being my own tech support, and alot of the times its a f***in pain in teh ass, espcially with the recent DFI Expert bios issue. But I also have had 2 Dell's and a Compaq (back when they were quality 😛) and don't regret it. I used them to learn off of.

When most of the world cannot, or are not willing to, build their own pc, rely on product level warranties and company specific tech support $1000 is a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with it.

As for the "takeover" you can't say your at all surprised? It was only a matter of time before the large corporation types tried to do a friendly takeover of a enthusiast company. It just makes good business sense. Why risk failure in designing your own esthusiast division when you can take over someone else who already knows how to do it and just tweak it to your liking?

This of course Alienware's shareholder's vote to allow the buy out. Its all up in the air, so we shall see.