System builder Alienware was quite recently acquired by Dell and has now ended up in quite a turmoil after its reactions because of a review at hardware site Hexus.net. In the review of an Alienware system the conclusion was that despite that the computer offered good performance and nice features it was a pretty poor purchase because of the high price. A conclusion based on facts which had been presented in a clear and impartial way. The problem was that when Hexus went back to Alienware for new test products they were rejected, simply because of the negative conclusion.
You could perhaps expect that Alienware would find itself being treated in the wrong way and that Hexus had perhaps missed something, but that was not the case. Instead, Alienware said that it simply expected to get a good grade when it sent out its products for reviews. If the products received a poor grade you simply don’t get any more products for evaluation. What is even more astonishing is that these statements have been made via e-mail and is thus pretty easy to validate.
Hexus decided to publish an article about Alienware; a company which tries to buy good grades and has even published the mail conversation Hexus and Alienware had. A very interesting and a bit frightening article about how some companies behave. The question is if this will result in an penalties for the responsible at Alienware.
