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Dell to Buy Alienware? 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-only-one-marketing-dept-will-ignore-my-emails dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Well, looks like rumors are flying, and Dell may have bought Alienware according to an article on cnet. It really would fit Dell well. They are the last big manufacturer not to use AMD, and this would fill that void. Acquiring this company would also help them grow their business to where they want it to be ($80 billion anually). One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition."
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Dell to Buy Alienware? More

Dell to Buy Alienware?

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  • New Ads (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:25AM (#14924162)
    Dude.... you're getting an Alien!

    • Re:New Ads (Score:5, Funny)

      by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:37AM (#14924290) Journal
      I think that could alienate the customers ;-)

    • Re:New Ads (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rocketship Underpant ( 804162 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:18PM (#14924740)
      Even better, if your pal's getting a suped-up gaming rig from Alienware, you can annoy him by telling him he's getting a Dell!

  • Customer service? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Widowwolf ( 779548 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:26AM (#14924176) Homepage
    "One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition." Whoa!..Alienware has so many post purchase CS complaints...Hell its hard to even talk to a competant rep once you get your laptop/desktop..When i ordered mone in November 18, 2005...and the did not get it to me until January 31 2006..Thats a little bit of a problem..You actually think Dell buying them out will help this..Maybe the will help with the 8 Stuck pixels that my laptop came with, that Alienware CS is still insisting that they will not replace the laptop for, because it is not center of the screen..When has it ever been ok to release a completely faulty product!

    • Re:Customer service? (Score:3, Informative)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )
      Laptops with stuck pixels has always been a problem - and one that most manufacturers will not return. And I think it is unreasonable for them to do this (although it would also really annoy me, having stuck pixels)

      IBM always did well in this reguard, with a 30-day no questions asked return policy.

      • Re:Customer service? (Score:5, Informative)

        by PFI_Optix ( 936301 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:51AM (#14924449) Journal
        Eight stuck pixels is excessive.

        When I worked phone support for laptops, the policy was three within a centimeter, four in the arbitrary "center", or seven overall. If they won't warranty eight stuck pixels because some of them aren't "in the center" then their warranty sucks.

      • Re:Customer service? (Score:3, Informative)

        by hal2814 ( 725639 )
        Also don't underestimate the return policies of some big box retailers who have a lot of push over the manufacturer. I know that both Wal-Mart and Sams Club will take back a laptop for any reason but you'd be buying an off-the-shelf model instead of a custom built Alienware. In fact, Sams Club has a 6 month return policy on laptops and desktops. That's not a typo. 6 months! Few questions asked. I'm not sure about the other big boxen since I haven't bought laptops or dekstops anywhere else. I wouldn't

      • Re:Customer service? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Asphalt ( 529464 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @02:20PM (#14925900)
        Laptops with stuck pixels has always been a problem - and one that most manufacturers will not return. And I think it is unreasonable for them to do this (although it would also really annoy me, having stuck pixels)

        They always replace mine or the credit card charge gets disputed and I have never had to pay it.

        When they tell me it is "industry standard", I tell them to feel free to send it to "The Industry" who should be thrilled with it, but that it is not up to my standard.

        LCD technology is no longer bleeding edge. Do I know how many components go into making a 1600x1200+ LCD screen? Yes. But I have seen enough perfect ones to know that they exist in huge numbers.

        Why should I pay the same price for 5 burned pixels that someone else paid to get a perfect screen?

        An LCD with ANY burned out pixels is ... defective. Period. I don't care what anyone says, burned pixels are a pain in the ass, and when you have forked out $3,000 for a machine, they stick out like a big middle finger.

        I buy Samsung panels because they have a zero dead pixel policy. They also have competitively priced displays. Apparently it can be done without a company going into bankruptcy.

        It's just easier and cheaper to have you accept a mistake by quoting "Industry Standards" which are no any more legally binding or carry any more weight than my preference for chocolate ice cream over vanilla.

        Set your personal consumer standard. If it is not met, dispute the charge until it is met. If it is between that, or a chargeback, you will get your display replaced 99% of the time.

        I've had to go through this dance 3 times, and have never settled for a fried pixel.

        For the consumers that don't care about burned pixels, "slightly imperfect" LCD's should be offered to those consumers at a discount.

        That way, everyone gets what they pay for.

    • Re:Customer service? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Talian ( 746379 ) *
      Some of my worst computer related service ever was from Alienware.

      Bought an aurora 7500, floppy was DOA, took 26 days to get a new one thanks to their ineptitude. Machine randomly locked on cd insert thanks to their extra software, bios had problems, chipset fan died (twice). Now given, sometimes machines have problems, but the techs were just horrible, unskilled, and without a clue. I was regularly hung up on, ignored, and given the run around. I would have sent it back, but they were going to charge
      • I second that. My machine actually came with a dead secondary IDE controller; they had to put a discrete controller card in the box just to get the CD drive running (I was all sorts of confused by the extra invoice in the box until I opened it up the first time to see what was broken). Lo and behold, the rest of the chipset fried a few months later, and it took a month or so to get the new motherboard (a rather lesser part, I might add. The economy version of the board that was in there).

    • Re:Customer service? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is no way it could be ill affected. It took me 6 weeks to get my brand spanking new machine fixed. I finally got the Tech Support Manager working with me directly, after a month of fighting with their 1st and 2nd level support. I have to say they were the worst company to work with I have ever seen.

      On the other hand I really like the machine now that it works properly but I dread the day I have to call if something breaks.
    • oddly enough, we tried to purchase one in mid/late November. At the end of January, we decided to cancel the order, because of this delay. It took us a week to cancel it, with the sales reps calling 'are you sure you want to cancel it?'.

      As soon as we tried to cancel, the first response was 'the parts will be here in 4 days!'. The same afternoon 'Ohh, the parts just came in!'. Whatever. We ordered a dell, with better specs for the same price [no wonder, it was two months later], and it came in two weeks late

    • Alienware customer service is total B.S. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShaunDon ( 589695 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:51PM (#14925077) Homepage
      In regards to Alienware's horrible customer service, I've got to weigh in. Last year I bought a laptop from them expecting a 15" 4:3 screen as pictured on their website when I ordered it. It took over a month to arrive, and what I got was a 15" widescreen with a 1680x1050 resolution -- I'm a young guy with decent vision (with corrective lenses) but this was too damn small for me and not what I ordered.

      Add to that my X, C, and V keys were DOA, and when I powered up the computer it informed me the CMOS battery was dead. Alienware advertises extensive power-on load testing -- if any of that were true, they would have found and corrected this problem as soon as they tried to power it up! Additionally the video card and wifi drivers were not installed, so their marketing B.S. about fine-tuning drivers for you is just that.

      To top this all off, I had to pay a 15% restocking fee to return my laptop for a refund. That was a $4k machine. Even after their false advertising as to the laptop design and absolutely no in-house testing -- despite the falsified testing sheet that came with it -- I lost $600 to them and it was two full months until I got the 17" Gateway laptop I now have. And it runs great.

      So maybe Dell will bring some credibility to Alienware, because it's totally bullshit. Do some Googling and you'll find hundreds of stories like mine.

      Shaun

      • Re:Alienware customer service is total B.S. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Ryosen ( 234440 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @04:20PM (#14926979)
        I'm assuming that you bought the laptop with your credit card? You should have gotten the credit card company involved and contested the charge. I've seen a number of companies back down real quick on restocking fees and return problems once their merchant accounts are involved.

        For those who don't know, if a vendor gets too many complaints to their merchant provider, they run the risk of getting dropped. Amex is great for this and I never use anything else when ordering online.

    • Re:Customer service? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

      I spent the last month or so researching Alienware as I really wanted to buy one of their desktops. After talking to their Sales Rep online 2x and on the phone 1x I had one of those gut feelings that what I just experianced wasn't what I expected. So, I started googling "alienware sucks/problems"

      What I found out started to make sense once I realized that my conversation with sales reps was on par with peoples attempts at talking to customer service reps on getting issues with their machines resolved.

      I

    • Hear, hear. There is a reason that they have made their forums for paying customers only. If more potential customers had to read of the crap that many Alienware customers have had to go through they never would buy. I wouldn't be surprised if there are vehement responses to this thread since there are rabid Alienware fans out there that basically bleed "neon green." Alienware had the worst quality control and customer service of any company I've ever dealt with. My extremely poor experiences have kept

    • Re:Customer service? (Score:3, Informative)

      by BdosError ( 261714 )
      All I have to say is see my domain name. Throught that I've collected a number of other peoples complaints, but I'm too lazy to post them. But Someday(tm).

  • WOO HOO! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by w.p.richardson ( 218394 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:26AM (#14924181) Homepage
    Overpriced computers with tech support from "Bob" in Bombay!

    All the while lining the pockets of good ol' Mike Dell.

    I'll keep building my own, thanks.

    • Re:WOO HOO! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:31AM (#14924237) Journal
      One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition."

      Please insert ten pages of laughter, Rofl, until the medics arrive to handle the heart attack this creates.

    • Re:WOO HOO! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:36AM (#14924289) Homepage
      This sounds facetiously pessimistic, but the next time you're on an 800 number and you manage to get a hold of a human, ask them where they are. So often you will get India or they'll refuse to answer.

    • Re:WOO HOO! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )
      I'm perplexed. I was under the impression that building your own got you better hardware and more flexibility, but not that it was cheaper. Basically, you could increase the high end, but that if you were looking for just-a-plain-computer you couldn't beat Dell's prices because you can't order the parts in the kind of massive bulk they do.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Introducing!.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kclittle ( 625128 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:26AM (#14924186)
    Dellianware! (ba-dum-crash)

    Thank you, thank you, I'll not be here all week.

  • Support Affected? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gurutc ( 613652 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:27AM (#14924191)
    All my rich uncles have either Alienware or Dell systems. These are users who need tons of support, and they are all equally happy. Also at the school district where I work we are 100% Dell. As long as the box is under warranty or service contract Dell is amazingly responsive to service and support needs.
    • Can I get a ticket to whatever world you're living in? I work in a shop where 100% of the PCs are Dell, and 100% of the PCs ordered by the fricking parent corporation are Dell, and I routinely have problems with them solving even trivial hardware problems without wasting hours of my freaking life.

      The people they send for onsite are generally substandard, and it takes a near eternity to get through online, compared to other corporate hardware support. If I've got a problem on the HP mainframe, I can have a g

      • Re:Support Affected? (Score:5, Informative)

        by gurutc ( 613652 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:51AM (#14924442)
        Here's how we get good support from Dell:

        First we buy the higher-end support options from Dell.

        Second, and most important, we take the Dell Certified Service Engineer Exams. There is a cost to this, but by keeping Dell-Certified Techs onsite in our own organization we never have to sit on the phone while someone with less ability (or even no clue at all) tries to 'diagnose' the problem. We find the problem, order the part, and Dell ships it or sends a install tech the next day.

        Granted, we're a large organization with 20,000 or so systems, but the Dell Cert process is only a few hundred dollars and would pay even with a few hundred systems.

      • At my univeristy the techs hate dell.

        The computers will mysteriously stop using DNS even if you do a ipconfig /renewall. Their solution is to have a tech continiously run around campus with a floppy of a tcp/ip stack .dll. The drivers on the nics continiously keep recorrupting the dlls.

        Nice machines... not!@

      • Re:Support Affected? (Score:5, Informative)

        by beejhuff ( 186291 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @01:30PM (#14925446) Homepage
        This is highly unlikely.

        First of all, if you REALLY have an HP Mainframe, you are paying a LOT in maintenance costs. I've never seen the actual costs for Himalaya support plans (only IBM 360's) but there is NO WAY that the costs are less than what Dell charges for even Premium Platinum Server Support per machine. I'm thinking the HP stuff would run probably a grand or two per month (and that's not that unreasonable since the mainframes start at the $250K mark - 10% of the value per year is normal for support).

        Dell's would be at max around a grand or two per year, which makes sense given their systems start at around the 2K - 3K range, though can obviously get up to the $10K - $20K range.

        If you had difficulty getting a hard drive (3 Days???) you didn't purchase the premium support plan, which will have a guarantee to have replacement parts ONSITE in 4 hours. Dell maintains distribution centers all over the world stocked with spare parts for these customers.

        If you have "Critical" systems, you spend the extra money on premium support, PERIOD. That's true if you buy from HP, IBM, Dell, or whoever. ABSOLUTELY NO VENDOR makes the 4-hour guarantee (which IMO is essential for anyone running "Critical" systems) without charging you extra.

        I'm a Dell employee, but these are not necessarily the opinions of my employer...you know the drill.

    • All my rich uncles have either Alienware or Dell systems. These are users who need tons of support, and they are all equally happy. Also at the school district where I work we are 100% Dell. As long as the box is under warranty or service contract Dell is amazingly responsive to service and support needs.

      I hope you are joking. Dell ranks no where near the top for support/customer satisfaction and their consumer hardware tends to be some of the least reliable. I've put in orders for 100 or so identical de

    • May you have to be rich and bribe someone at Alienware for good support, because I've had the WORST customer service experiences of my life with Alienware, and many other posts here bear that out.

  • Obligatory grammar pedant (Score:4, Informative)

    by graemecoates ( 592009 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:27AM (#14924198) Homepage

    It's affected not effected.

    Effected means to have actioned. Affected means influenced by.

    • Re:Obligatory grammar pedant (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "have actioned"

      Do you call yourself a grammar nazi? Go outside and think about what you've done.

  • Hardware and Support (Score:5, Informative)

    by Penguinoflight ( 517245 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:28AM (#14924202) Journal
    AlienWare starts systems with about the same level of hardware as Dell. Last time I looked at their lineup, they were trying to sell a system with embedded video. We know how bad Dell support is, and they will likely move their alienware support devision to india too. The only good thing I can see coming of this is lower prices. This really makes sense, if you want a high quality system and support, you should go to a PC shop or a friend.
    • They DO have a couple of notebooks with Intel Extreme graphics.

      Ooooh. Must order one of those!

      I had to check twice to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Sad to see them going lowend.

    • ...if you want a high quality system and support, you should go to a PC shop or a friend.

      I'd add the caveat that you need to go to a PC shop you know and trust, or to a friend whom you know is capable and always available. Both of these approaches carry their own risks. The one or two people at the PC shop who really know their stuff may move away or take another job. The friend who put together your PC may grow to resent your tech support calls, straining your friendship.

      I'm only a casual gamer, (whi

  • http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/pcs/0,39029439,400 61082,00.htm [cnet.com.au] A local Dell spokesman has effectively denied rumours that it's acquired rival PC vendor Alienware, suggesting that all speculation should be taken "with a grain of salt".
    • What's interesting about the references is that are both tied to C|NET. What does this tell us about how C|NET operates? To be fair, the original story here comes from reviews.cnet.com whereas your reference above is cnet.com.au. Maybe the folks Down Under have more or less information? Maybe the 'roos are screwing things up? ;-)

  • Alienware Support? (Score:5, Informative)

    by particle_fizax ( 883569 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:29AM (#14924220)
    Alienware support??? You're kidding, right? Have you ever spoken to Alienware support? Over the 15-16 times I had to call up (my video card on my desktop replacement heated to the point of bubbling) I found myself wishing I could deal with Dell.

    When 2 of my keys fell off on the 4th day I owned the laptop, the CS Rep (Juan) informed me that he couldn't replace the keyboard because it was more than 3 days old, but he "off the record" suggested superglue to me.

    • Re:Alienware Support? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jettoki ( 894493 )
      I cannot stress enough how true this is. Alienware support is terrible, terrible, terrible. They also use unsupported generic versions of some parts. For instance, I ordered my Alienware with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2. It came with some kind of a Audigy 1 that had been modified to be recognized as an Audigy 2. Official Creative drivers do not work; I've had to resort to alternatives.

      And don't be fooled into believing that your Alienware will never overheat, with all of those fans. I do everything I can

    • Re:Alienware Support? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:46AM (#14924387) Homepage Journal
      Dell support is great.

      Assuming of course you pay for the expensive option where you get a special phone number to call, and where they guarantee to send a technician out within 24 hours. I paid $300 to get 3 years of that, and I was sooooooo glad I did so when it turned out the laptop I bought was defective. Obviously, I'd prefer never to get defective merchandise, but having them come to me, instead of having to do any shipping or whatever was great.
    • I have had the total opposite experience with Dell support. If your product's under warranty, they'll fix it. Just last week my laptop (Inspiron 8600) croaked. Dead motherboard. They had an on-site tech at my apartment swapping out the mobo within a single day! And I'm in New Orleans! I was extremely impressed by the level of service they delivered. This wasn't a fluke, either. I've had 24-hour turnarounds on major hardware issues in the past.

      Granted, it'd be nicer not to have these problems in the first

    • Re:Alienware Support? (Score:3, Informative)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      When 2 of my keys fell off on the 4th day I owned the laptop, the CS Rep (Juan) informed me that he couldn't replace the keyboard because it was more than 3 days old, but he "off the record" suggested superglue to me.

      Oh, so they are just like Dell? When the tilde key broke on my laptop they told me to ship it in to them for warranty repair. When it got there they told me it broke from abuse (mind you this key was about 1/3 the size of any other key on the keyboard and when this occured ~ was common in URL
    • In the UK, if something breaks within the first year, the law says you can send it back and get a replacement or refund - the seller seems to get to choose which they offer, though I don't know if it's supposed to be up to them. Is this just a UK thing? Does everyone else have to buy a warranty?

  • Are you sure about that? (Score:5, Informative)

    by netfool ( 623800 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:31AM (#14924236) Homepage
    Because this article states otherwise. [cnet.com.au]
  • I have avoided bulk manufacturers such as Dell and HP like the plague. They give you about as many choices as you got in the old Soviet Union. You can have any configuration you want as long as it's the one they want you to have. It's also a bit like buying a Japanese car: 5000 models, all alike.

    The good thing about companies like Alienware (and other smaller makers) is that you get lots of choice and you can configure your box just about any way you want it. Also, you can change things after you buy it

  • End-run around Dell's OEMs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RubberDogBone ( 851604 ) * on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:32AM (#14924248)
    If true, this smells like Dell trying to make an end-run around Samsung and the other OEM builders for Dell's notebooks.

    With this, they'd get a company that makes it's own AND gain access to some supply of AMD without having to bring it in as a full mass market Dell product with the supply issues that would cause.

    Samsung would probably jump for joy as they would no longer be embargoed from selling computers under their own name in the US.

    Who knows. Voodoo says it's true. Dell denies it. Alienware will neither confirm nor deny. If these were politicians speaking, Dell's denial would be laughable and Alienware's respose would be code for confirmation.
  • The news is here at CNET [com.com]

    From the article: "Speculation about a possible buyout has been rife since Rahul Sood, CEO of original equipment manufacturer Voodoo PC, posted his thoughts on such a move on his blog two weeks ago.

    damn these blogs.

  • Makes more sense than XPS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fak3r ( 917687 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:33AM (#14924261) Homepage
    This makes more sense than Dell trying to dress up their systems with the XPS badge. Giving consumers a more highend (read needlessly expensive) systems will appeal more to the tweakers and neon windowed case types. Dell would cover all the bases; from a $399 complete system (after rebates) for Grandma, and a $3000 tricked out system for Johnny Freshman to frag on!

    Now if Dell would offer Linux as a equal choice (I'm not talking about buying Linux or a 'naked' FreeDOS box on a similar system that is *more* than an XP box!). With Apple's Intel offerings starting to look great, people that want to run OS X for fun will be swayed once they try it, and people like me who have no use for XP are already planning on buying a new MacBook for OSX/Linux dual boot. If/when they have the abiltiy to run XP too, well I think Dell should be a bit worried, but they'll still beat them on price (well, not with these Aliens they won't!)

  • trimming the fat (Score:3, Informative)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:33AM (#14924262) Homepage
    Remember the movie Wall Street? When a company is rumored to be bought, its stock will most likely go up substantially because investors know the company will cut overhead, largely in the form of layoffs. Expect that to happen here. So I'm not optimistic about support but that doesn't mean that the quality of the technology will diminish, perhaps even the opposite as the new owner has the interest and the cash money to step up R&D or acquisitions of other similar companies.
    • The pattern is usually that the aquirer's stock goes down (DELL) and the aquired's stock goes up. Since alienware is privately held you can't profit from it. You could short sell DELL. It's a terrible stock in a terrible business, this would just be one more reason for DELL to go down.

  • AlienatedWare (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:37AM (#14924295)
    One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition.

    Sadly it has been affected, now they are calling this new merger 'AlienatedWare', and furthermore, all tech support is done by 'aliens.'
  • One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill affected by this acquisition."

    couldn't get much worse.

  • Pretty cases (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:40AM (#14924322) Homepage
    Well...they both try to fleece gamers out of extra money with glitz, marketing speak and pretty cases...seems like a match made in heaven!

    Of course Alienware does actually make quality computers, and I purchased one myself since I don't have the time to build my own...but here's a tip....order from their small business line. Its WAAAY cheaper, you get the same components for the most part...and the only thing lacking is the flashy case that screams "Alienware just scammed me out of $500 bucks for this case".

    • i know it's unscientific, but back when i was living in a college dorm the problems on the Dell and HP coputers were software problems mostly PEBKAC's. The guys with the alienware machines were the ones with crap like burned out video cards and dying RAM.

  • Alienware should buy Gateway. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:44AM (#14924361) Homepage Journal
    It'd fit with the whole aliens-abducting-cows thing.

    ...sorry.

  • It is real (Score:5, Informative)

    by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <{charlie} {at} {semiaccurate.com}> on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:46AM (#14924381) Homepage
    I wrote the first story backing up Rahul's blog here:
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30043 [theinquirer.net]
    and then got more info the other day that also backed up the CNet and AMDZone versions, so I wrote this:
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30289 [theinquirer.net]
    Then the new CNet 'backpedal' piece came out, and it looks like someone is spreading hardcore FUD. So, I spent the morning tracking down rumors and leads, calling sources to see who their sources are and the like.

    Short story, the sources are not talking to each other, and contrary to the CNet implications, it is not a grand plot by Rahul. I was told last week that it is a done deal, and nothing has changed that view since, but a lot has bolstered it.

    The tepid denials (A friend of a guy who knew someone from Dell Australia) and the like are not what I would call good evidence. I have talked to three people who gave me some very convincing evidence about the purchase.

    All that said, take it with a grain of salt, but when you start hearing about anouncement dates, it may be more than smoke and mirrors.

              -Charlie

  • alienware burned me. Dell can improve them. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jbossvi ( 946552 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:10PM (#14924642)
    I had a alienware sentia laptop. after 1 year and 4 months (1 year warranty) the laptop totally died on me. So I call up to get out of warranty repair, I was expecting to pay. After playing the phone support game with a couple of their techs it came down to:

    -Model is discontinued, and they have 0 parts for this model.
    -They have no competitive upgrade, I would have bought a newer laptop if they would have given me something for the old one.
    -Alienware said "sorry" and referred me to a company in CA who does laptop component repairs.

    At this point I sent it to the company in CA who said the MB was totally shot. they gave me some money for the case and the LCD and shipped me my hardrive back.

    Hopefully Alienware can learn a few things from Dell on how to support their products.

    A totally disatisfied customer.

  • So seti@home [berkeley.edu] was successful after all! I can't wait to see all those new DELL PCs with true alien tech! Any Linux port to this new alien arch yet? It should be hard to get the spec from such a distant vendor!

  • ...... As Mark Evans (a well known technology reporter in Canada) has posted in his blog that it is entirely possible that Dell has bought Voodoo PC:

    http://evans.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/15 /1821932.html [blogware.com]

  • And, just like everything else Alienware sells, (Score:3, Funny)

    by Celestial Avenger ( 826964 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:12PM (#14924669)
    they sold their company at a ridiculously overpriced rate!

  • Alemonware (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alfredsmithee ( 961373 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:16PM (#14924708)
    The merger can only help. We bought a handful of Alienwares (desktops and laptops) for our employees - we are a government software development research lab. The desktops have been okay, but the laptops are horrible. Every one of them has had some major problems and mine (Sentia) has had the keyboard replaced twice and the optical drive replaced once. I have personally spent hours waiting on the phone for an answer from their technical support. The other two Sentia laptops we bought are in worse shape than mine. All of these problems cropped up within a year of owning the machine. Add this post to the long list of Alienware beefs that is resident on the Web...or should I say ALEMONWARE?
  • Alienware takes cheap-ass Uniwill commodity laptops, puts them in a custom case with upgraded video, and marks them up a thousand bucks over what other companies such as Averatec etc. would charge for the same damn laptop.

    If Dell bought them, at least the quality would go up.

  • What support? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zeveck ( 821824 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:27PM (#14924821)
    I know people tote Alienware's hardware and support, but every time I have had to interact with their support it has been horrible.

    Most recently I have had a problem with the little screws falling out of my laptop and with my AC adapter dying.

    1. I shouldn't have had to call in to get mailed screws (which is aside from the fact that screws shouldn't have been falling out of my laptop in the first place). This should have been simple enough to handle via e-mail, but no, I had to call.

    2. I shouldn't have had to wait for 40 minutes on hold when I *did* finally call Alienware.

    3. I shouldn't have been lied to by the first person I spoke with, who told me that part was all set and that I'd receive it shortly. When it didn't arrive and I called back they said they were out of stock and they'd ship it when it was back in stock.

    4. They really shouldn't have been out of stock of the AC adapter for a laptop STILL UNDER WARRANTY.

    5. When the DID finally ship it they shipped it do an address that I haven't used with them in YEARS. I then had to have people I knew at said address (it was a previous employer) ship me the part.

    All of this is on my second Alienware laptop, whose only major problem is that it resets if you bump the DVD-ROM the wrong way (this is annoying, but avoidable, and I didn't feel like sending it to them to fix it). This is my second laptop only because THEY HAD TO REPLACE my first one after months of tech support, three round trips back to Alienware TO FIX THE SAME PROBLEM, and TENS OF HOURS on the phone.

  • In the end... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by macdaddy357 ( 582412 ) <macdaddy357@hotmail.com> on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:33PM (#14924876)
    In the end, there will be two computer manufacturers: Dell and Apple.
  • Something like this - where a large company that delivers consumer goods to a wide audience, then buys a company that makes high-end items in that same market - has been a hallmark of the automobile industry for years. Most of the high-end auto companies are actually owned by more typically-branded companies. For instance, Ferrari is controlled by Fiat, Jaguar and Aston-Martin are owned by Ford, Saabs and Hummers are actually from GM. The purpose of these companies is, in some small fractional part, to p

  • Interesting this should come out (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:44PM (#14925001) Journal
    Especially in light of this story [cnn.com] from two days ago which talked about Alienware and its founders.

  • Alienware Store looks familiar (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aesiamun ( 862627 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @12:46PM (#14925023) Homepage Journal
    The alienware store works a LOT like the dell store does now. Upselling Norton, the warranties are a lot like Dell's now...it just reminds me of when I bought my laptop.

    This is rather wierd feeling.

  • It's not true (Score:2, Funny)

    by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )
    Dell has already released a press statement saying it's not true. This all aparently started from a VoodooPC blog, whom is a competitor with Alienware.

  • Dell Site vs. Alienware Site (Score:3, Informative)

    by Galaxie ( 40909 ) <mike.locals@ca> on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @01:01PM (#14925182) Homepage
    I've been hearing this rumor for a while and the fact that it was already shot down by dell, but i never really noticed how similar dell and alienware's websites really are... like "I stole the entire design from the other guy's site" similar...

  • And to think... (Score:5, Informative)

    by RoffleTheWaffle ( 916980 ) on Wednesday March 15, 2006 @01:18PM (#14925332) Journal
    It's not like it'd be a big difference if Dell did buy out Alienware. It used to be back a few years ago that Alienware computers were the envy of the gaming world. You got a fully loaded, high quality computer with a very attractive case and very nice peripherals, and an even more attractive warranty and support package. You could rest completely assured that it'd play anything, and play it better than any other gaming computer on the market, and if it broke, you'd get it fixed right away. Of course, times change. Dell computers used to be a hot item, too.

    Now that Alienware has sunk to Dell's inferior standards, it's only logical that they allow themselves to be bought out. Dell and Alienware are practically the same thing, only one of them sells office hardware and servers, too. Think about it - overpriced, overhyped piece of shit computers sold in attractive cases? Piss-poor technical support that can't speak a word of English? The only thing these two companies still have going for them is a barely-par warranty package, and even then they're both flaky about that. They're both washed-up computer manufacturers peddling electronic turds wrapped in pretty packages.

    What a drag, but hey. If you're going to build a computer right, you do it yourself.
  • Right now I'm sitting in a computer lab full of 30 alienware top of the line computers with Samsung Syncmaster 19" monitors.

    I go to school for a Gaming and Simulation engineering degree. To attract more students, one of the things we wanted to get to show off was a lab of alienware. We had a bunch of grant money, and a very limited amount of time to spend it before it was taken back from us, so we had to make some quick decisions.

    We bought about 4 DLP projectors, some firewire DV cams, a nice security syste
  • Either two things will happen. Base Dell computers will become more expensive, or all Alienware systems will lower in price. I guess we'll just have to see.

  • It really would fit Dell well.

    Alienware is like the Mercedes of PCs. Their computers are typically over priced and aim for a very specific niche market (gamers).

    Meanwhile, Dell is a bulk seller of commodity parts. They're the Civics, man. How in the world is this a good fit? It seems more like a really awkward fit to me.

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