RSSDell gives more hints about new form factors
By Tim Conneally | Published November 15, 2007, 5:57 PM
As Dell re-asserts its relevance as a PC manufacturer, the company takes another gamble on completely new form factors, including a hybrid portable.
At Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, CEO Michael Dell made a keynote speech showing off two forthcoming Dell products that shed the company's traditional desktop-or-notebook form factor: the XPS One (no relation to the similar Gateway model of the same name) and the multi-touch capable Latitude XP convertible tablet.
These two designs may be a departure from the company's usual approach, but they are by no means unique or particularly novel. Nevertheless, the XPS One's all-in-one design is definitely a sign of the times, and every company that releases one will face the inevitable comparison to the iMac.
The tablet computer has absolutely failed to make the splash that Microsoft foresaw five or more years ago. But in a Direct 2 Dell video blog posted on May 18, Dell's Jeff Clarke said that technology, customer, and usage models have evolved to the point where it is now a good time for the company to put a new tablet PC on the market.
Perhaps the evolution he was referring to was the unveiling of Apple's tablet design at Macworld several months prior.
But neither of these new Dell designs have a release to market date yet, and the multi-touch demo of the Latitude tablet at OpenWorld has not provided us with any concrete specs.
Since Michael Dell reassumed his position as CEO, it seems that every development under the Dell brand is an attempt at striking out in new directions. This year alone, Dell has decreased its emphasis on the traditional direct sales model by expanding its retail presence into Wal-Mart and Staples in the USA, Bic Camera in Japan, Carphone Warehouse in the UK, and Gome in China.
This month, Dell began its biggest takeover yet - although the transaction will not be complete until 2008 - by acquiring iSCSI SAN and virtualization specialists EqualLogic for $1.4 billion. The acquisition was said to be a move toward building a storage channel. The company has also begun to offer open source operating systems as options, such as Ubuntu 7.04 in addition to its own non-GUI based FreeDOS.
Pics of the XPS One:
http://www.engadget.com/...eaked-watch-out-gateway/
I like.
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|it's all tarted up with its glossy red makeup like a cheap hooker or a flamboyant drag queen. i'll take a mild aluminum or white imac over something flamboyant any day of the week
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|Im with you on this one - the brushed aluminum is much easier on the eyes than this red monstrosity.
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|There is always room for improvement. However, I wonder if their attempt is "overkill" and but another fruitless road/venture.
For my part, I have an idea/improvement that would scramble buyers to the stores and let their current machines collect dust.
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|For what it is worth, I;m typing this on an XPS 1730 spec'd to the max including 2x64 SSD's, wonderful rig indeed. The only options i did not elect on this were the Blo Ray (2), and settled for what I know best, this includes XP Pro as the OS of choice.
Anyway, back to the point "Form Factor", I also have an XPS M1330, again spec'd to the max, this one is aesthetically the ultimate notebook.
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|i didnt know WoW had such high hardware requirements
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|Subtle but important distinction: it isn't Apple's tablet design that was unveiled, it was Axiotron's. The ModBook is a third party modification / creation, not Apple's. While the Dell multiple touch capabilities look nice on the XT, it's only going to be useful if the right apps and UI use it. That's part of the reason for poor tablet adoption to this point: not enough value-add apps that take advantage of ink and touch.
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|This is good news. I've previously owned an Inspiron, which was a piece of poorly engineered junk. They've got to pull out some stops, invest some of those billions they're sitting on in some serious r&d and put out some slick, small, fast and cheap tablets and xps like notebooks (that are a bit sturdier than current models). If they don't they will continue to find themselves with a shrinking piece of the pie.
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|Actually, it's not called the "Latitude XP" , but the "Latitude XT". The Latitude XP was a conventional laptop that was offered by Dell in the mid-90's (codename: "Metallica"). Also, Dell has been offering FreeDOS for years! The author made it sound like this was a new development.
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