Dell is buying Alienware, which Nicholas Carr interprets as a deviation from Dell’s traditional business model.

I am not so sure. I see it as the disovery (by Dell) that the gaming machine market is not only large, but ready for folks that want the speed and the graphics and perhaps also the cool design, and want that in a package that does not require them to build the machine themselves or deal with smaller vendors with less global reach. Imagine a WoW environment with ads for Dell Computers inside, in many languages and delivered all over the world. Dell delivers in Norway, for instance, but I don’t think Alienware does.

So in my book, this is Dell taking their business model to the gaming market, which still wants to maximize performance for a given budget (which Dell is masterful at) and still demands customizability (as opposed to more and more of the business or private PC market, where any machine off the shelf is pretty near good enough.)

Move to where the money still is, in other words.