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For one brief moment during a recent business meeting, Nelson Gonzalez wondered whether he'd inadvertently booked himself an appointment for a forced brain reboot by the men in black.
Gonzalez, co-owner of Alienware Computers, was showing off the company's collection of space-invader style machines to a group of potential buyers that included representatives from the Air Force and the Pentagon.
"All of a sudden I realized I was showing these guys machines named Area 51, and to make it even worse all the computer cases have these little alien faces with bright glowing eyes," said Gonzalez. "They must have realized how ironic it was at the exact same time I did. I looked at them. They looked at me. We all paused for a moment, then we smiled and nodded and got right back to business."
Alienware's unusual designs – cases e painted in peculiar metallic hues with alien eyes that glow in different colors to indicate system status – had never been an issue when the company marketed its custom-built high-performance machines solely to gamers and power-hungry geeks who admired the oddball aesthetics.
But recently Alienware has decided to branch out and advertise aggressively to other types of users. Among the potential customers interested in Alienware computers are government agencies, according to Alienware marketing director Brian Ross.
"Governments use flight- and combat-simulation programs to train soldiers now, and simulations really are just computer games," he said. "It's a little odd to think of a government office with an Alien on every desk, but we're thrilled that they're so enthusiastic about the product."
Governments aren't the only new customers Alienware is courting. The company is also trying to appeal to digital artists, musicians and filmmakers – a niche that's normally considered to be dominated by Apple.
"When I first started this business there were two companies I admired – Apple and Dell," said Gonzalez. "Dell, because they built solid machines very efficiently. Apple, because they brought real style to the computer world. I wanted Alienware to be the best of both Apple and Dell – solid, well-built and innovative systems that looked great."
Asked if he thought Apple's passionately devoted users would ever consider switching to Alienware, Gonzalez said that wasn't really his goal.
"It used to be that all creative types used Apples. But that's not really true any more. There are a lot of artists and musicians and so on that have never used a Mac or have switched to PCs because they want a choice in what hardware is used to build their machine. Those are the people we see using Alienware," he said.
Gonzalez and his business partner, Alex Aguila, launched Alienware seven years ago with an initial investment of $13,000 for office equipment and rent. The company was unable to establish credit lines with computer parts vendors, so each Alienware customer had to pay in advance for their system, which allowed the company to purchase the products to manufacture that system.
Gonzalez got the idea to custom build high-performance machines for gamers from his own experiments constructing computers that would allow him to run flight simulators on machines designed primarily to handle spreadsheets and word-processing software.
Once he figured out how to squeeze the most performance out of off-the-shelf parts, he began building machines for his friends. Shortly after, he figured he'd "just roll the dice" and start a business based on what he'd learned. He named it Alienware in tribute to his longtime fascination with both UFOs and computer hardware.
Gonzales also tried to make the building process a bit different from that of the competition.
"First we handpick each component that goes into the machines based on performance – we choose the best," he said. "Then we build a clean machine – there are no bird's nests of wires and cords, everything is neatly tie-wrapped. That makes for better airflow and the system components don't overheat."
"Then we tweak. We do all the things the obsessed overclocker geek would do with their own machine. We turn some services off; we accelerate some things. Sometimes we add our own custom drivers or just twiddle component settings. People who know how to tweak a machine like Alienware … because it doesn't take them a few days to set up their system; it's all been done for them. People who don't really know computers just like the way the machines run."
Gonzalez said Alienware apart is also set apart by the fact that the company primarily hires gamers to build the machines and staff the order and support desks.
But while Alienware executives' corporate biographies do include such tidbits as "Brian Ross is old enough to remember the sounds that Pong made, how to get the Babel fish, and all of Dirk's death scenes" – rather unusual in a bio for the head of marketing for a multimillion dollar company – Ross and Gonzalez admit that not everyone at Alienware is into computer games.
"I have a strong suspicion that there are not too many hardcore gamers in our accounting department," said Gonzalez. "But apart from those guys, we try to keep the culture of the company centered on making great stuff to have fun with."
"Plus as we get bigger and are trying to broaden our marketplace we are hiring people who are more focused on graphic design, digital editing and such – so that any customer who calls in can ask to speak to someone who's an expert in whatever field the customer is interested in," Gonzalez added.
"And if a customer has to get in touch with us more than once, they can ask to speak to the same person so they don't have to start from scratch with a new support rep," he said. "I hate when companies make me do that. I don't have a lot of patience so customer support is a big deal to me. We outsourced it for awhile but that didn't work out, so we recently brought it back in house."
Next up for Alienware is the expansion of its headquarters and manufacturing facility in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The company is building a new 90,000-square-foot facility. Ross said the company intends to add about 250 employees to its 550-plus current staff over the next two years. Alienware had revenues of more than $90 million in 2003 and projects they'll top $150 million in 2004.
But that's not enough for Gonzalez.
"No matter how good it gets, I'm never content with what we've accomplished," said Gonzalez. "For me, running this company is like playing a computer game. It feels great when you win but the next day you're back looking for a higher score, a faster time, more points, better magic."
