Anyone else hear that Dell is buying Alienware?Sounds like a way for them to
get around their agreement with Intel to use only Intel cpu's in their
systems.
I thought about that too but I doubt it. For one it would still piss
INTEL off royally at a time when Anandtech has been hyping the new
INTELs as taking over the world. Seems like bizarre timing at least
for the consumer mkt especially right before Vista is supposed to be
introed and will be hyped like crazy and possibly spur a lot more
desktop upgrades.
The other thing though is I heard surprisingly DELL made lots or most
of their money from the corporate mkt. I always thought the consumer
mkt was the most important for them for some reason because of all the
ads directed to consumers. And Ive read AMD was really kicking INTELs
butt with the cheaper Opterons. Dont know if thats true and if it
really has made a big dent in the corp mkt. Maybe it could be true
DELL wants out I suppose if thats the most important aspect and that
they would risk pissing INTEL off but I dont see how that relates to
Alienware and getting to sell AMDs in the corp mkt.
That story was all over the newspapers last week and then denied.
Unless there are new rumors or unless DELL is trying to cover it up
until it happens it seems like it was just a rumor.
It was funny though, I was reading the NY TIMES last week and saw a
big write up on ALIENWARE didnt even mention DELL. They talked about
two guys who had had this idea to make higher end game machines at a
time when prices were falling on PCs -- early 2000s I think orlate 90s
cant remember which. They scraped together 10K between them and
started in a hole in the wall office. I think they said they sold
$230 mil last year worth of stuff. I was wondering why they were
featured suddenly in the NY Times then I started seeing posts later
that night saying some website speculating on a DELL takeover sparked
a bunch of rumors and the news picked it up as if it was fact and
later reported DELL denied it. The news articles that first claimed
it might happen stressed DELLs margins were being squeezed as cheaper
and cheaper PCs were being sold. Right now Compaq after they ousted
their former CEO ---- I thought they would go on an aggressive pricing
campaign and they have. Theyve been sticking it to DELL with deals at
Compusa, OD etc. Articles talked about how their former, hyped CEO
forced them to buy Compaq and now they were stuck with it so they
wanted to gain mkt share against DELL.
Anyway they claimed Alienware had this "cool factor" brandname that
allowed them to sell higher priced PCs at a time prices were falling
steeply so maybe DELL wanted to buy the brand. Since AMDs are popular
now with gamers etc and have gained some mkt share it makes sense but
I looked back at some articles and noticed theyve speculated DELL was
going to start using AMDs for years and years and its never happened,
every year . And it seems strange they would risk the relationship
right before INTEL supposedly is coming out with these hyped new
series of red hot chips. Unless of course INTEL senses this and
deperately came out with these new chips to entice DELL to stay on
board and they turn out to be way more expensive than than comparable
AMDs.
It's the high end gaming market that I'm thinking about,Dell's XPS series is
hampered by the lack of AMD cpu's,nothing Intel has can touch AMD in
gaming.And with AMD on top now and doubt about Intel's hype of their new
chip's performance,maybe Dell is having second thoughts.They are the only
mass market pc maker that doesn't offer AMD systems,I think that's going to
hurt them if it doesn't change.
It's the high end gaming market that I'm thinking about,Dell's XPS series is
hampered by the lack of AMD cpu's,nothing Intel has can touch AMD in
gaming.And with AMD on top now and doubt about Intel's hype of their new
chip's performance,maybe Dell is having second thoughts.They are the only
mass market pc maker that doesn't offer AMD systems,I think that's going to
hurt them if it doesn't change.
Everything looks different now with the new Intel chips supposedly
being super fast and improving in power consumption. Unless they are
grossly priced forever , have bugs or AMD comes up with even faster or
cheaper chips --- I dont see it.
Frankly I dont see why DELL if they really wanted this mkt doesnt
aggressively go after it on their own. I remember when they had the
DELL DUDE . That was hyped so much as boosting DELLs sales and he even
became a semi-celeb to the point when he started talking about going
off on his on it seemed DELL got pissed and canned the promo quick.
It didn't help when the Dell Dude got busted for dope either.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/delldude1.html
Everything looks different now with the new Intel chips supposedly
being super fast and improving in power consumption. Unless they are
grossly priced forever , have bugs or AMD comes up with even faster or
cheaper chips --- I dont see it.
Frankly I dont see why DELL if they really wanted this mkt doesnt
aggressively go after it on their own. I remember when they had the
DELL DUDE . That was hyped so much as boosting DELLs sales and he even
became a semi-celeb to the point when he started talking about going
off on his on it seemed DELL got pissed and canned the promo quick.
They should come out with a series of DELL GAMING DUDEs hype and
create a whole new brand within a brand like Lexus or Infinity. Make
it seem like a whole new division and get black garishly styled cases
the kind gamers like for them and intro the whole thing in a blizzard
of promos and red hot low prices to kick it off.
Have the whole thing set up though like a hip smaller entrepreneurial
unit within DELL.
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