Dell Tablet PC
There's been some chatter about a Latitude Tablet PC coming from Dell. Check out what Jeff Clarke has to say. — View Video — Format: flv — Duration: 0:58
Context & Ripple Effects
Tablet chatter around Dell has been building since jkOnTheRun reported in April that more information was surfacing about a possible Dell Tablet PC. What changed this week is who is doing the talking: rather than leaving the story to enthusiast blogs, Dell put Jeff Clarke on camera for a sub-minute Direct2Dell video acknowledging the Latitude Tablet PC rumors.
That matters because of how Dell has been handling product direction all spring — restarting Windows XP sales against Vista-only policy and launching Ubuntu 7.04 after overwhelming IdeaStorm demand. A public executive response on the blog fits that pattern: Dell treating customer chatter as input into the roadmap rather than noise to ignore.
First-order effects
- Jeff Clarke's on-camera acknowledgment moves the Latitude Tablet PC from unconfirmed blog speculation to something Dell itself is publicly discussing, giving enterprise buyers waiting on a Latitude convertible an official channel to watch.
- jkOnTheRun's pickup of the Direct2Dell post shows the company blog now functions as Dell's primary rumor-response vehicle, bypassing traditional press cycles entirely.
Second-order effects
- Rivals selling pen-based business convertibles into corporate accounts now face the prospect of the largest PC vendor entering that niche under the trusted Latitude brand rather than a consumer label.
- Dell's XP reversal and Ubuntu program have already shown customer forums steering portfolio choices; a tablet teased through the same channel invites IdeaStorm users to lobby openly for specific hardware features.
Third-order effects
- If Dell confirms and ships the machine, the episode becomes a template for how major OEMs float and validate form-factor bets — tease via blog, gauge reaction, then commit — collapsing the gap between rumor management and product planning.
- A Latitude-branded convertible would also test whether the Tablet PC category survives on enterprise standardization alone, independent of whatever momentum consumer designs carry.
The trend: PC makers are shifting product signaling from embargoed press leaks to direct-to-customer blog videos, letting community reaction shape which rumored hardware actually ships.