Alienware's official response to this is as follows:
"In response to a recent report concerning Alienware's system review process, Alienware would like to take the opportunity to clarify that process. As a matter of long standing policy, Alienware makes no distinctions on who receives a system for review. Alienware offers an equal opportunity to all publications for system reviews. In addition to offering review units to publications, Alienware offers reviewers a unique guidance approach that is available at any point during the review process. The objective of this approach is designed to answer any questions on features, hardware, software benchmarking or any other issues during the course of the evaluation. Furthermore, Alienware does not have access to the review until after publication, but during the review process, Alienware strives to ensure that, if the system is to be compared to another brand, the two systems contain similar hardware specifications - creating an "apples to apples" comparison. Though every effort is made to observe these policies and practices, on occasion, it may be difficult to accommodate the requests of certain publications due to supply limitations or other situations beyond Alienware's control. Alienware has a long standing reputation of excellence in product reviews and we strive to meet those requests when at all possible so that we continue to deliver an unparalleled product reviews experience for our colleagues in the media and, in return, we expect that all media publications exercise fairness and accuracy when reviewing Alienware products."
Also, please check out Alienware's response on Hexus, where this all began:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7113&pa ge=5&search=alienware
Slashdot Mirror
Alienware's official response to this is as follows: "In response to a recent report concerning Alienware's system review process, Alienware would like to take the opportunity to clarify that process. As a matter of long standing policy, Alienware makes no distinctions on who receives a system for review. Alienware offers an equal opportunity to all publications for system reviews. In addition to offering review units to publications, Alienware offers reviewers a unique guidance approach that is available at any point during the review process. The objective of this approach is designed to answer any questions on features, hardware, software benchmarking or any other issues during the course of the evaluation. Furthermore, Alienware does not have access to the review until after publication, but during the review process, Alienware strives to ensure that, if the system is to be compared to another brand, the two systems contain similar hardware specifications - creating an "apples to apples" comparison. Though every effort is made to observe these policies and practices, on occasion, it may be difficult to accommodate the requests of certain publications due to supply limitations or other situations beyond Alienware's control. Alienware has a long standing reputation of excellence in product reviews and we strive to meet those requests when at all possible so that we continue to deliver an unparalleled product reviews experience for our colleagues in the media and, in return, we expect that all media publications exercise fairness and accuracy when reviewing Alienware products." Also, please check out Alienware's response on Hexus, where this all began: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7113&pa ge=5&search=alienware