When it rains (3G notebooks), it pours

That's the headline I probably should have used on my previous blog about how HP was so rattled by Dell's announcement of a Cingular-provisioned 3G wireless broadband notebook that it issued a formal response.  Normally, if one vendor feels compelled to issue a statement in response to another vendor's announcement, it's an explanation of why the newly announced product or service  is a bad idea.  For example, earlier this year, when IBM revitalized its mainframes, HP countered with a seven point "fact" sheet (see: The real story about the IBM mainframe) designed to disuade IT shops from investing any further in mainframes.  HP wasn't alone. In the same week, Sun issued a mainframe-badmouthing statement of its own.  I can't recall in recent industry history where, unsolicited, one vendor answered another's with an announcement that bascially says "Uh, we're going to do that too, but we have nothing to announce." 

Anyway, why I am a revisiting the notebook 3G news?  Because my colleague Dan Farber grabbed a photo of Lenovo's new offerings at Demo '05 (see photo below or click on it for a larger version of the image. Also, see Dan's Demo '05 photo gallery).  Wrote Dan via email: Lenovo demoed theThinkPad Z60 family which comes in 14- and 15-inch widescreen models. It also has a roll cage (in the foreground of the photo); a stiff inner frame similar to how cars are built to withstand crashes. In addition, ThinkPad Z60  has embedded WWAN with EVDO technology.  Dan's email also linked to a story over at PC Magazine that discusses the new Lenovo offering as well as some 3G Vaios from Sony.