Alienware palette brings colour to a PC world

They're lean, they're mean, they're dayglo green, and when you flip open one of these laptops at a board meeting and its alien logo eyes glow white, you are sure to have all the other suits riveted, writes Karlin Lillington

They're lean, they're mean, they're dayglo green, and when you flip open one of these laptops at a board meeting and its alien logo eyes glow white, you are sure to have all the other suits riveted.

Or maybe you'd prefer an intense pink or otherworldly blue? All possible with your Alienware laptop or PC.

Yes, the ones with enormous rubber alien eyes built into the case design, and the embedded glowing logo.

Then again, maybe this isn't exactly the machine a besuited executive is going to whip open in the boardroom.

"Maybe. Why not?" laughs Stefan Konopatzki, Alienware's vice president of marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Alienware - based in Miami, Florida but which has its 30-person EMEA headquarters in Athlone - is definitely not your ordinary computer company. Nor does it target your ordinary computer user (though it has moved into targeting some segments of the business world).

Born out of founders Alex Aquila and Nelson Gonzalez's intense passion for gaming, Alienware provides slickly designed, hand-built machines made from high-end components.

These are top-of-the-line laptops and PCs designed to handle the intense demands computer games place on processors, memory and displays. They are pricier than average.

Their look - appropriately for something called Alienware - is out there. Way out there. Product lines and colours have whimsical alien themes, too: Aurura, Sentia, Hive Mind, Area 51, Ozma, space black.

Who buys them?

"People who want to stick out from the crowd, that want something different from a beige system," says Mr Konopatzki.

"Also, people who like hardware - people who would like to build their machine themselves, and probably used to build their own, but now they don't really have the time."

What they have time to do is select the components for their machine from the Alienware website (www.alienware.ie) and place so many orders that revenue for the past year for the privately-held company stands at $100 million (€81.57 million), according to Mr Konopatzki.

Alienware has grown three-fold in the past year and also doubled its revenue, he says. Not bad for a firm that began in a garage with $10,000 and a goal of someday selling 100 systems a month.

Such success has given it a leadership position in this niche area of computing, among competitors such as Voodoo, Falcon Northwest and HyperSonic.

Gamers, says Mr Konopatzki, will always be the company's core market.

Alienware is highly visible in gaming magazines and maintains its profile through sponsorship of events in the gaming world.

The company actively encourages users to open their machines and install new or replacement parts. It offers 24-hour support.

And upgrade parts are offered at cost - something the company hopes will pay off with long-term customers.

Mr Konopatzki sees the Alienware brand image as the Porsche of computers, a high performance machine designed for those indifferent to mass market trends.

The company is ambitiously setting up a serious of "virtual offices" across Europe to provide home-language support and systems, all provided from Athlone.

Though more than 90 per cent of its market is still firmly in the US, he promises a steady expansion into new markets.

However, Alienware is eyeing more than new geographies and its traditional gaming market.

Its gaming success with desktops led the company to first start offering laptops, including the Sentia, aimed more at the mainstream or business user than a gamer.

And now Alienware has branched off into a line called Professional Desktops, which have specialised designs for handling digital video and audio.

Alienware hopes this line will gain favour with people who need extra computing power for graphics-heavy applications: graphic designers, architects, web designers, sound and film engineers.

In other words, much the same market Apple targets.

Apple - also a niche player emphasising design and performance, but one with around 5 per cent of the total computer market - has the advantageof an extremely loyal customer base, says Mr Ranjit Atwal, industry analyst, Gartner.

But in terms of both design and performance, Alienware may be a potential contender in that niche business corner, he says. "They're not a volume player. But Alienware, and others like them, are trying to win over the top end of the mass market. They're innovative, and the PC market needs innovation."

Alienware professional desktops may just appeal to people who prefer Apple design but use Windows-based PCs in their jobs, he says.

"They can move over to Microsoft and still feel a bit dangerous." Alienware is not just toe-dabbling with its business offerings but "plans to stay in that market and expand in that market", says Mr Konopatzki. "We will always be a niche player, but that also means we will find new niche markets."

While Alienware has been moving into the business market, the more traditional, beige computer manufacturers have closely watched its success in the gaming niche. Both Dell and Compaq have recently launched high-spec laptops targeting the gaming market.

"They realised they're missing out on a lucrative market," says Mr Atwal.

The higher price for the machines gives a greater profit margin, and with gamers, there's an opportunity to sell other Dell or Compaq peripherals along with the laptop, he says.

However, such mainstream competitors do not offer the case design and coolness factor that has made Alienware and other small niche PC builders the darlings of the gaming crowd.

But conversely, it remains to be seen whether that luminous, bug-eyed alien design will win the hearts and minds of the corporate director.