Dell and HP get into virtual spat

Dull has its very own island in the virtual hippy-fest, and has even started planting virtual trees to help the environment. Right. The island is all part of Dell's new web-savvy-customer-friendly-interactive-social-semantic-web experiment, which also includes the Dell IdeaZone and Direct2Dell bog.

Eric Kint, VP of Marketing Strategy for HP, appeared to take a dig at Dell last week in

Eager to score points over its competitor, after being found lacking in market share last week, Dell responded by criticising HP's marketing-centred philosophy and suggesting that "If you're approaching the world as an involved resident, then it's about more than marketing and it has more meaning." Because obviously, Dell is in the community because it cares about people, not because it's marketing.

Dell, for its part, suggests that getting into SL will help the company "be prepared for the 3D internet". What are they smoking in Texas? Obviously something, given that their blogger has the title of 'Metaverse Editor'. Are they hoping they can live in a second life where their machines sell better than HP?

After taking this punt, HP man Kintz took what must be an unusual step and commented on the Dell bog, directly responding to the challenge mano-a-mano. "I think focusing solely on the title of my post - and not its content - is misleading to your readers," says the man. That's fighting talk.

Anybody want to set up a Second Life boxing ring for them to duke it out? µ