New details are coming to light about Dell's latest move to copy Apple's recent consumer success. Sometime on Tuesday the company is expected to unveil the "WebPC," a low-cost computer that's aimed squarely at the Average Shmoe. The good folks at CNET seem to have weaseled a fair number of details about this new system, and the list of features may strike some of you as oddly familiar. Let's see, here... "stylized"; "easy-to-use"; "consumer-friendly"; "simplified means of connecting mice and keyboards"; "small, curvy case". Higher-end WebPCs will offer "a blue case" and "snap-on plastic keyboard and case covers that come in four different colors." Ringing any bells?

Now, here's the really interesting thing: a faithful viewer known only as "j" points out that the word "iMac" doesn't appear anywhere in CNET's article. Neither does the word "Apple." Apparently we've officially reached the stage at which the iMac is so firmly entrenched as a paradigm for the consumer computer market, there's no longer any need to mention it when other companies emulate its features and style in their own products. Hey, it was bound to happen. After all, articles about Windows don't throw in a sentence about its "borrowing" of the Mac OS interface any more, right? (There's also the distinct possibility that the article's author is either clueless or anti-Apple...)

Here's something else we found noteworthy: the WebPC is actually less configurable than an iMac, in terms of build-to-order. Dell pretty much pioneered the whole build-your-own-computer-online idea, which Apple later adopted for the Apple Store. One of the big criticisms of the Apple Store, though, is that its Macs aren't as configurable as they could be-- some systems don't allow the removal of a built-in modem, others require a built-in Zip drive, systems can't be ordered with no RAM and hard drive, etc. But with the WebPC, Dell's overtaken Apple in the "less configurable" department; you can pick the amount of RAM you want in your iMac, but the WebPC will come in "three configurations that will not vary." Yet more evidence of the Apple-ing of Dell.