It's Official Dell Acquired Alienware 361
robyn217 writes "Dell just confirmed today that it had acquired boutique PC vendor Alienware. Alienware's Nelson Gonzalez said that his company will continue on with its own brand, design, sales and marketing, and support, though, so Alienware isn't going anywhere just yet. Gonzalez also said that Alienware PCs would not carry a Dell logo, and that he would report directly to Jim Schneider, Dell's chief financial officer. "I think that you'll find it very hard to find the Dell name on the [Alienware] web site," he said." The rumor is now fact.
AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah..no change. right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you have a contract that states dells name won't appear, and thatm hey won't influence the various aspects of Alienware, they will.
The IT world is littered with the dried up husks of good companies that were bought and told nothing would change.
Re:Maybe they've learned a lesson (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny, laugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Dell would go so far out of their way to diversify their offerings just so they could throw it all away. If Dell wanted to sell Intel only, they had everything they needed already, and there would have been no point in the aquisition.
Re:The Alienware slogan... (Score:3, Insightful)
A durable car can be driven after a serious accident. A durable car puts up with no maintenance for 20,000 miles. A durable car can be fixed by someone with less than $500 worth of tools.
In the same way -- a durable computer keeps chugging along with four cubic inches of dust inside the case. A durable computer is still usable with a blown capacitaotor and a failing hard drive. A durable computer can be kicked and given to a two-year old and still used.
"Durable" isn't Alienware's value-argument, and it isn't Ferarri's, either. (Although, really, it's a laughable comparison. Alienware doesn't build Ferarri's; they build pre-pimped rice burners.)
Re:The Alienware slogan... (Score:3, Insightful)
*THAT* would not be a Ferrari.
Re:They obviously aren't aware of Acer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, a *very* different company than the legend that brought us the 911.
So what is the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is dell just looking to send engineers over to Alienware to learn how to make gaming PCs?
Re:Intel is going to 0wn AMD this year though (Score:1, Insightful)
*yawn*
Wake me when you have benchmarks comparing the Conroe to the new AM2 based AMD systems. I'm not going to speculate whose is going to be faster by what tiny, insignificant amount, but at least be fair about it and compare chips of the same generation. Otherwise you might as well say "Dood! AMD pwnz Intel because the FX-60 is faster than the P4 660 Prescott!" It's literally true, but it's also a biased comparison.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
the obvious reason ... (Score:5, Insightful)
What Dell gets out of it (Score:4, Insightful)
1) They get an existing, well-known high-end brand. Rather than trying to make a new high-end brand, which would require major expenses as well as a large change in public opinion. Would you want to buy a $4.00 coffee if it was sold under the, say, Maxwell House brand name? No offense to Maxwell House, but people don't necessarily see them as a high-end brand of coffee. They could try to start their own premium brand, and advertise it as such, but it still would bear the name of Maxwell House. If they would buy Starbucks and kept it mostly separate, they would be able to have an instant presence in the high-end market without having to carve out a niche from the existing brands.
2) They get to consolidate portions of the infrastructure. If a company prides itself on its products, it still has other, less glamorous departments, such as distribution. Though the existing distribution may need to expand to handle the additional load, it still would be smaller than the two individual networks. Note that distribution is used here as an example; since they ship using carrier companies, they probably don't have their own distribution networks. The concept may still hold true for certain other departments, though.
3) Alienware gets the benefit of Dell and their extensive advertising network. Where did you first hear about Alienware? Was it from an ad in a newspaper? A commercial on TV? What's more likely is that you heard about them from more specialized advertising, or from other techno-geeks. However, if Dell can convince the general public that "Hey! You're upgrading to the finer things in life - a faster car, a bigger TV - why not get a high-end computer too?" As a result, the Alienware brand gets more commonly known as a high-end computer brand, and sells more units.
4) Alienware gets the benefit of being able to expand more and eliminate bottlenecks in service. If they're waiting until there's money in the budget to expand the repair center, there are probably three or four other departments that can also use the increased budget. But if Dell is willing to put some money into Alienware, and let them smooth out the wrinkles in service, then they'll be able to expand the repair center, upgrade the assembly line, and train more workers all at once.
So as long as Dell keeps their promise to let Alienware continue on with its own brand, design, sales and marketing, and support, it looks like the beginning of a highly profitable relationship.
Re:propietarity anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, you don't get economy of scale. This is hugely important in consumer electronics. The more a company can buy of a widget, the cheaper each widget costs. It's not like a 10% off thing, it can be like a 50% off thing if your volumes are high enough. Related to this, Dell, HP, Lenovo have enormous power to drive component prices down. Their number 1 weapon is competitors for any given product. If a customer says "Give me X", they lose that benefit, prices go up. Go to a car dealership, price out a car. Then go to another, and say 'beat this price'. Works great, you can get a honda for under dealer invoice if you try hard. Same principle. In this respect Apple is different, it is more willing (not TOTALLY willing, just more willing) to lock in to one vendor it really likes and designs around it. This is why they're more expensive, even with x86 architectures.
Second, you can't support it cheaply. You cannot take any random combinations of components and have a guarantee (that you'll bet your business on) that it'll be supported. The only way to give guarantees is to build it, test it, find the bugs, and design them out. That is extremely expensive to do for every combination. This is, in fact, why Apple works the way it works. They only give you a small number of options, support a small number of drivers, and tell you "this is your product". They can support that 100%, do something they haven't tested and you're on your own. It's also why they are probably the most reliable machines: they made their job very easy. Even the big three PC makers can't do that.
Finally, the market wants cheap and wants supported. Yes there are niche customers who know what components they want, but not many do. Those that do don't always know what technical problems may exist beneath the hood. Memory timing problems (not CAS latency but setup, hold, duty cycle, DQS, etc.) are probably the #1 issue on motherboards, you can take the superstar motherboard and the superstar memory company and they may not work together, even though both claim to support some standard. Worse, they may appear to work together but be subtly corrupting your filesystem. There are all kinds of deeply concerning electrical problems that may exist. This happens throughout the system. No one tests their component level products to the level they should be tested. Sad, but true.
There are plenty of companies that will let you build your own box, but they'll necessarily always be small, and always attract an audience that is more patient with bugs. Personally, in spite of every problem I know of that can go wrong in a computer, I still build my own. I knowingly invite this problem because I'm willing to risk the bugs (and pay for them, if need be) for the performance. Most people do not, much like most people do not buy exotic sports cars.
Proprietary is a funny word. I'd use it on Apple, since their system is closed, anyone who wnats to work in it must go through Apple. I'm not sure it applies in your example. PERC cards are an example of a card Dell supports because it either built them in house, or spec'd them for use in their servers. They can support it from the ground up. It's proprietary in that its Dell branded, may or may not have been made in-house at Dell, but it's still a PCI/PCI-X/PCIe card. You ought to be able to replace it with an equivalent function card, although you won't be supported.
You would not call a nVidia GPU based card proprietary when made by Asus or Gigabyte, I'm not sure how it's any more proprietary if its made by Dell. Asus or Gigabyte don't "rebrand" their video cards, they are independent designs using the nVidia chipset. Similarly all the big PC manufacturers design many of their components in house, outsource some, offshore others, but rarely do their own chipsets (IBM may be the only one that does). Doing your own boards does give you tremendous control of costs, hence the reason you see this happen. It doesn't mean they're using "cheap components" so much as they are negotiating component cost down by playing vendors off on each other.
Re:Honda builds Ferraris better than Ferrari... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Alienware slogan... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kind of like how the big 3 auto manufacturers always have tricked out concept cars they never actually sell. Doesn't mean they're in the same market as Ferrari.