Dell Names Secret ‘Slate’ After Non-Existent Apple Product
Posted in: Media Players, slate, tablet, Today's Chili
LAS VEGAS — Dell is poised to flood the market with a whole range of tablets, from tiny iPhone-sized handsets to big media players. At CES this morning, Dell’s marketing boss Michael Tatelman gave us a teasing sneak peek.
The handset he showed us, seen above, is a skinny sliver with a 5-inch screen and runs the Android operating system. It will probably never make it into stores, but Tatelman said that there are plenty of tablets, of all shapes, sizes and operating systems living in the Dell labs and aimed at going on sale as soon as possible.
What really surprised us, though, is how Tatelman referred to it. He introduced the handset and said “I believe they are known as slates.” He’s not the only one. At Microsoft’s CES keynote yesterday, CEO Steve Ballmer also called his company’s new line of tablets* “slates”.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has one take on this. “I honestly think Microsoft renamed these things on the basis on a rumored name for Apple’s tablet, just to try to fuck with them” he writes.
What is extraordinary is that, whatever their reasons, both Dell and Microsoft are naming devices based on rumors that Apple has the trademark and domain name for “iSlate.” The mythical tech-unicorn that Apple may or may not announce later this month is has already created an entire new product category based on nothing but speculation. How’s that for influence?
*Which are exactly the same as the failed tablets of yesteryear, only running Windows 7 instead of XP, both of which are designed for desktop computers.
We know nothing about this “Slate Concept” by Dell, other than, you know, it looks like a 7-inch tablet and it’s running Android. One more shot: Update: We got a 
Pretty, right?
