I ordered an Alienware X17 on August 12 with a delivery date of Sept. 13. On August 17th I couldn't believe the laptop had entered In Production phase as I thought maybe I would receive before said delivery date. On the night of Sept. 12th I received an email stating that delivery was delayed a week. Every Sunday for the next 4 weeks I would get the same email. The last update stated that it would ship on the 11th of October, so when it didn't update by the 13th of October I contacted Dell. I was advised that there was shortage on the CPU, but it was going to be completed on Friday the 15th and I would have it by Tuesday the 18th. On the 19th I still hadn't received the laptop, so I contacted them again and then was advised that there was a multiple parts shortage and they escalate the issue. Almost a week later and Dell had not provided any information or updates. 

I am a first time Alienware buyer and this has been the most frustrating purchase in my life. Dell claims no responsibility due to parts shortages, but this is completely BS. How do you put a a product into production without having all the parts to build it. I used to work in a department that was responsible to replenish parts on a cardio assembly line. I could log into a computer at any time and know how many parts were on hand and see when the next delivery dates from our suppliers on receiving more . This was important as we produced different types of equipment for different vendors and the inventory allowed to know which orders were available to fill. Why can't Dell have the same capable system. 

Secondly, when I look on the site to purchase a X17  with exact same specs tonight, Dell shows a delivery date of 10/28-11/2? How when you can't even ship out orders from 2 months ago? If Dell hasn't been able fill the 2 previous months of orders there is no way they can ship a laptop purchase tonight and meet any of those delivery dates. 

Dell is too big to be this bad at not knowing about when your purchase is actually going to be shipped. I just hope my  laptop was not one of the 40 containers that fell into the ocean today.