Interview with Alienware General Manager & VP Arthur Lewis Discussion

At E3 this year, I got to take a couple of minutes and talk with Arthur Lewis, a Dell VP and General Manager of their gaming group, which includes the Alienware brand. Despite the fact that E3 was easily dominated by console games, PCs still had a major presence - as Lewis soon points out, Alienware saw their revenue last year jump to $13bn.

Read the full content of this Article: Interview with Alienware General Manager & VP Arthur Lewis

Related Articles:

• Alienware m15x Review
• Alienware M11x Review
• E3 2010: Alienware M11x Core i7 Hands-On Review (with Video)
• UPDATE: Alienware M11x updated with Core i3, i5, i7 Processors

 

Fyi, I know it says DTR in the corner. I edited this and uploaded everything back at E3...so cut me a little slack.

 

Alienware products are hokey and gimmicky. Best left to rich spoiled teens which are apparently in abundance according to the revenue fig.

 

Nelson, what happened to the promised M11x R2 review? You encountered any problems?

 

the funny thing is that most alienware owners here are in their late 20s/30s

 

While I think the M15x and M17x are pricey, Alienware definitely has more "brand power" than most laptop brands out there (second to Apple maybe).

I have a gaming desktop under way so the M15x and M17x are nothing for me but the M11x is definitely a great product, and not overpriced in my opinion since it is truly innovative and better than any subnotebooks out there (especially this new refresh).

 

I'm guessing Jerry must not have gotten it in for review yet. AW promised me one a week later, but it looks like they've gone and made me a liar.

 

Thanks for letting me know I was a rich spoiled teen, I thought I was a 30 year old geek, wow was I wrong, better let my wife know

I don't know about their larger models but they make the best sub 13" notebook out there, and for only $1,000, I just received the MX11 R2 and its awesome, worth every penny (but not one more if alienware is reading). for those of us that have a powerful desktop and want a couch computer or something to take with while traveling that can still play most of our games and do any other task you throw at it, this is perfect. Well almost perfect, would be great if they released a 13" version with a non ulv cpu if they could get the same battery life out of it (since they would have room for a larger battery too...)

 

Yeah, if Alienware is reading, where is the M13x??

 

I'll eat my shorts if Alienware's revenue was $13bn last year. That number is preposterous. If they sold $100m worth of machines with the Alienware logo on it last year, I would be surprised. Somebody should have challenged him on that number rather than just being a corporate shill.

 

Given that Lewis is the GM for Dell's entire gaming division, I suspect that that's what the figure is about - AW broke $100mil back in 2004 and I don't think they've posted less since. I don't appreciate being referred to as a corporate shill, either.

Regardless, I've asked Dell to clarify.

 

Take the M11x footprint - Decrease bezel. Increase screen size to 13.

There. Add a much higher quality display. Gamers need a good display.


Add a Directx 11 gfx card.
Add a full i5 processor.
Individual key LED coloring(have the W,A,S,D keys in a different color for example)
Improve the Hinge design to make them more robust.
try and improve the speaker sound.
make sure battery stays on the good side of 5 hours on integrated.

M11x is an amazing machine. If they just rework it a bit without increasing size or weight, the M13x could be... the notebook of the forever.

Some of it should be optional. I would pay 150 usd more for a high quality display but its not sure that everybody would. thats why it should be an option.

 

And if only they put out a fuel cell for it that ran on unicorn blood! Then I could have power for ages.

 

And some (as in me) are in their 50's

 

I will say Alienware seems to be one of the only notebook companies updating their graphics drivers lately and you have a rep here who is doing a great job relaying customer problems to fix.

*Waiting to read on Engadget that the next M11x revision will be unicorn blood powered. (They seem to be getting a lot of news from posts here lately.)

 

Well, I appreciate the sarcasm(makes me feel like a victim!) but I am not sure I follow.
Why are you indicating that it's impossible?

Doing a Edge-to-edge display shouldn't be the hardest thing in the world. I'm sure they could squeeze at least one more inch, into what is already a very heavy and bulky 11'' laptop.

As for the battery life, we have seen great results from 3820 tg with superior full fledged i7 and 5650(dx11). If 335 is more power hungry, then that's what needs to go, but AW should be able to match Acer of all companies.

But then again... m11x might be their first portable laptop, so maybe they have very little R&D on battery technology?

 

Hum well last time I checked I made minimum wage instead of well rich boy wage.

Maybe you should think things through

 

I apoligize for the "corporate shill" comment. Too strong. However, you'll make or break yourself as a journalist depending on how well you do at cutting through marketing talk to get the truth.

A little Google-ing indicates that Dell typically reports revenues of around $13-14bn per quarter, which works out to about $65 billion annually. Dell also admits that their consumer division (where Alienware fits) comprises only about 20% of their total revenue. So, even if Alienware was all of that business--and you and I know it's maybe more like 5% at the most--we're looking at roughly (($65bn times 20%) times 5%) for their yearly revenue, and that comes to $650 million a year. The quoted $13bn sounds like it might be the correct number for Dell's entire consumer division for a year.

 

36 here. Hmmmm! Go figure. I would bet most users are well past teen age years.

 

Improbable. It is far more likely that $13B is the revenue from Dell's entire consumer division for all of FY2010. Here is an article about Q4 FY2010. In Q4, the revenue distribution was:

Large enterprise: $4.2B
Public Sector: $3.8B
Consumer: $3.5B
Small & medium business: $3.3B
------------------------------
Total: $14.8B (actually quoted as $14.9B, probably rounding issue)

They do not give the distribution for the entire FY2010, but the total revenue was $52.9B so if you scale up the consumer division's revenue accordingly, you get your $13B.

 

Fair enough, and I'd say you're probably correct in the assessment.

 

Yeah i forgot about how dell gets most of their money from the corporate division, his numbers were wrong, it is only until a year and a half ago the name Alienware was starting to become globally recognized. and even now the name isn't well known yet. Anyway maybe you should of asked him about the build quality designs of the m15 and m17x. Hey i am a college student and i am not that rich either, sick of people saying that rich kids only own alienware products, it's so much cheaper now to get one.