I was really hoping it wasn’t true, but apparently it is: Alienware is being bought by Dell [1].
Why don’t I want it t be true? Well, Alienware builds hand-made boutique machines for the serious gamer. Dell builds commodity by the tens of millions for the home consumer. Dell is so much bigger than Alienware ($55 billion in revenue, 33 million computers in 2005, versus $200 million in revenue and 60,000 computers for Alienware) that it seems fated that Alienware will “disappear”.
But will they? The current CEO and one of the founders of Alienware reminds us that they will be a “wholly owned subsidiary”, which gives them some lattitude to remain “different” from Dell [2]. I hope he’s right. But all that keeps running through my head is a line from Star Trek’s Borg…
We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.