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Mark Vena on Dellienware

Edison Trent writes "Tom's Hardware has a piece up on the acquisition of Alienware by Dell in which they've interviewed Mark Vena, Alienware's VP of Marketing, who spilled some interesting beans on the acquisition. Among them is the fact that Michael Dell himself (aka Mr Steve Jobs-alike) supposedly led the acquisition from the beginning (will this force out Alienware management later?), and that Dell will be handling all of Alienwares supplier relationships, including that with AMD. In the more mundane and day to day changes Dell will also be backing Alienware financing of their expensive machines, which is something Alienware couldn't have done before on its own and because Dell will be handling all of Alienwares suppliers the company expects to get more allocation of scarce products such as new graphics cards and ordering an Alienware will no longer be like putting in an order for a car in East Germany."

6 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Editing 101 by Gothmolly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dear Editors,
    You can, you know, edit the submissions. Holy run-on sentences. To wit:

    In the more mundane and day to day changes Dell will also be backing Alienware financing of their expensive machines, which is something Alienware couldn't have done before on its own and because Dell will be handling all of Alienwares suppliers the company expects to get more allocation of scarce products such as new graphics cards and ordering an Alienware will no longer be like putting in an order for a car in East Germany.

    This is 5th or 6th grade level writing. Even MS Word would have suggestions to fix it.

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    1. Re:Editing 101 by jb.hl.com · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Hi, you appear to be writing a Slashdot story! I'm not going to bother helping, because you're inevitably going to fuck up anyway. Bye!"

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  2. What? by Tezkah · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did you just compare Michael Dell to Steve Jobs?

    Here's a hint: one wears a turtleneck and makes innovative computer products, the other one is Michael Dell.

    Next Time on Slashdot: "Linus Torvalds (Linux's Bill Gates) tells people to use KDE!!!"

  3. Hopefully Dell will not make this mistake by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    of replacing successful management.

    Quite possibly the stupidest thing done in business is acquiring a successful company and then forcing out management that got you there in the first place.

    A great example is the airline industry. I used to work for American Airlines and we bought AirCal in the late 1980s, a successful airline. Thinking that somehow we had possessed a magic talisman I suppose, we proceeded to throw the routes to the dogs and our California business went to hell. Then came the establishment of the San Jose "hub" which we did to mainly get coveted Tokyo routes. We signed a deal with the city of San Jose but the deal stipulated that if we ever downgraded San Jose that we could never land in the city again. All was well and good until Southwest came to California (a carrier that also forced us to close up shop in Nashville without a fight).

    Within a couple of years Southwest was trouncing our ass and United but one carrier that stood up and fought back successfuly was Reno Air. They put up a great fight with Southwest and did ok. American then suckered Reno Air into subleasing the money losing gates and operations at San Jose and then something amazing happened: Reno Air prospered!

    American, thinking like every other arrogant business, bought Reno Air, installed their incompetant management (rife in EVERY legacy carrier which is big reason why they are all hurting so bad now) and Southwest's response was a big "THANK YOU"! American bought their one big competitor and Southwest already knew that American could be taken fairly easily.

    Mere possession does not give you advantage, culture does. That is why Southwest is so successful as well as Apple.

    1. Re:Hopefully Dell will not make this mistake by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Funny

      The place I work, the management is so out of touch they have no idea whats going on. They constantly allocate resources in the most ass way possible, lie, cheat, steal, and fire anybody who is competent.

      So you work at Microsoft?

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  4. you and your quips by maskedavenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    everyone can make stupid names like Dellienwarel and the like but to me, if Alienware wanted a parent company, Dell would be the first I would pick. They're the only mass-makers that my institution hasn't regretted buying from. Low maintenance, I think about 1 out of 100 are shipped with something wrong with them. I won an Alienware in a gaming tournament. It wasn't better than my current rig but it was nice. I unpackaged it to take pictures for ebay and I was very impressed with it overall. Dell takes the same care for each computer even though they sell for much lower. This *should* lower Alienware's prices due to supply costs being cut. If so, this will put one hell of an edge on the market for them. I think of Dailmer-Chrystler, now that they merged European cars have boommed all over the nation. Same thing's going to happen with Alienware. My question is, is XPS going to compete with Alienware in good manner?

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