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Dell to Buy Alienware?
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."
It's affected not effected.
Effected means to have actioned. Affected means influenced by.
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.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/pcs/0,39029439,400 61082,00.htm
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".
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer.
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.
Because this article states otherwise.
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
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.
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.
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".
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
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.
I wrote the first story backing up Rahul's blog here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30043
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
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
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 a 20% restocking fee.
Biggest mistake I ever made, won't happen again.
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.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
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.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30289
:)
Luckily I was there yesterday. 6/10 for effort though.
-Charlie
I think it's funny how people in the CNET forums are talking about how it's so much cheaper to build your own computer, and anyone who disagrees is crazy. Look... the computer I'm using now cost $350, including a 15" LCD monitor, including shipping. Now, the cheapest 15" LCD on NewEgg is $160 including shipping, and NewEgg tends to have the best prices of any store that you'd trust your credit card number with.
:P
That means, if it's cheaper to build your own computer, you can build an entire computer for $190 including shipping, which would be incredible, to say the least. Admittedly, my 2.6 GHz Celeron is not setting any records (although for the stuff I use it for, including compiling, it's plenty fast), but still. Pick any processor you want; I still don't think that, for $190, you can have a processor, motherboard, 256MB of memory, a 40 GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, and a case/power supply shipped to your door.
Yeah, maybe Dell tries to do a bait-and-switch, but if you're smart/patient enough to look through their site and only order a computer when it actually is the amazing deal they've advertised, you'll do fine. You just have to be careful not to upgrade stuff, or they'll nail you.
"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"
p hp/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=678
http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/alienware.cfg/
Bullshit.
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.
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.
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 advise buying anything as expensive as a laptop somewhere where they won't at least offer replacement with a new item (not a refurb) if I'm not 100% happy.
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
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...
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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 was a sworn Dell hater do to my untimely resolved of laptop issues I had with my Inspiron 8100. But after I thought about it some more, I realized that despite the fact that their 'depot' kept returning my computer telling me it wasn't broken (and me opening it back up to find it still was), working with Customer Support wasn't all that bad for Dell (except the 40+min wait times on hold which I actaully expect). That fact that my laptop has traveled the world multiple times, been banged around in a bag hiking to school and back, and I only had a hard drive go bad on it once in 6 years? Not to bad really.
Then I read that Alienware takes forever to send you a replacement part, to order your computer in the first place, or to fix it themselves (despite an onsite warrenty they will never allow you to use apparently).
So, I had a choice. Take a dell, have it parts arrive the next day. Or get an Alienware with a sweet case but take weeks or longer to get an issue resolved on average. Where Dell will take forever in a bad scenario. So, I picked the lesser of two evils and saved a few $100 and had a much better experaince talking to the sales rep (who still admited that I was more technical than himself)
If Dell bought Alienware, it would be good. They would have a great high-end gaming market and be able to at least get orders processed faster. You'll still have to talk to someone in another country and wait 45+min on hold. But at least you'll get your replacement parts or computer quickly!
heck, my XPS 600 was ordered on Friday and was shipped by Monday. Compared to Alienware's 3 week standard time... if you don't have issues. Apparently that could even take months.
With the deadpixel thing. LCD's will have dead pixels... ask people like me with a PSP that has some. LCD's are made such that there might be one or two dead pixels. It's just a technology that is that difficult to produce 100% that it's an acceptable business cost/risk. How many pixels and their location often determine if the screen should be sent back.
Cheers, Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
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 3 of my friends from purchasing from this vendor, and at least two more of my friends online have done the same. Could be a great match for Dell, though. In my experience their customer service and quality can only go up.
Are these Dimensions or Optiplexes? If you're buying 100 at a time, go with Optiplex! Much more stable than the "motherboard of the day" Dimensions.
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.
Good point, but I guess that leaves the average (or slightly above) home user in the lurch to getting resolution to issues.
You did make me recall that every time I called Sun, I received excellent support. Especially since I was having difficulty with a machine that due to security reasons I could not send them raw core files and could not allow them access to the machine. They provided me with analysis tools so that I could extract the necessary data they needed from the core files and get into to a plain text format that I could then provide them.
So I revise my previous statement...most distance support I've dealt with was CRAP, but Sun was outstanding!
How big of a spender do you need to be to get good Dell support? At the time the small company I worked for had spent at least ~25k with them, and they were horrid! Granted that's not a large amount big...but it's not small either...
Ceinwyn
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.
Bryan "BJ" Hoffpauir
We find the problem, order the part, and Dell ships it or sends a install tech the next day.
We have several thousand HP desktops and servers. I did the same thing when i was doing desktops and non of us were qualified as HP technicians. We used the online HP support system. Basically, open a ticket on the HP support web site, describe what I need and I get the replacement part in under 2 days in the mail. Example:
40GB HD part number XXX, I ran bios tests and it failed with code YYY. Please send replacement part ZZZZ.
Maybe you can charge HP or Dell for your time as well if you are qualified with them?
I am the network engineer now and I usually call HP directly for our servers. Thier server support team is very good and you do not get all of the first level crap you do with the desktop side, like make sure the unit is plugged in etc..
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).
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
You may, but its not correct. I bought a Dell XPS 400 through a bunch of coupons for 500 bucks last month - P4 2.8D, 1 GB Ram, 160GB drive, DVD-RW and CD-RW, X300 card (yes, I know its a crap card). If you put rhe components put together yourself, along with the cost of Windows, come out to about the same (or more likely) spending a little more. For me, the time commitment wasn;t worth it. If you're building a really nice rig, yeah you can do better. For a basic computer, they're fine because they can acquire the components far more cheaply than you can.