Earlier this year, sites like The Consumerist and Gizmodo showed us that we still have a lot of work to do to reduce packaging. Regardless of steps we take to protect the environment, as an industry our work is far from over.

But when the printer company from Palo Alto packs 32 pages of A4 paper in 17 boxes, it deserves a conversation. How did it happen and why?

You may recall that when we had an issue with one of our suppliers, we sent a team to Dallas the next day to sort it out. We also put in place specific steps to address excessive packaging head on. As a result of great customer ideas and feedback, we're planning to reduce packaging by 10 million pounds over the next year. It underscores the value of listening. And green IT is also something lots of folks at Dell take seriously. That's an area where lots of companies can do more.

It's disappointing that HP has yet to respond. We can all learn a lot by listening to customers and uncovering ways we can improve the planet.

So, let's get to the bottom of it. Send us your pictures of HP's excessive packaging and we'll share them with their head of corporate sustainability.  You can post them here or e-mail them to regeneration@dell.com.   And if you have ways that we can improve, let us know. Let's have a dialogue about why this happened and how we can all work together to improve packaging.

(BTW, today's incident reminded us of a comparison we did earlier this year between our M-Series blade server and HP's C-3000 "Shorty"...see below for a brief video showing the differences).

After months of testing and development we are ready to release Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on select Dell consumer systems. For consumers in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom and many Latin American countries (like Mexico and Colombia) Ubuntu 8.04 will be offered on the XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N notebooks and the Inspiron 530N  Click on any of the country links above or go to www.dell.com/ubuntu to place your order. :)

In early August, we will also add the XPS M1530n and Studio 15n to the line-up. This is just in time for LinuxWorld where we will participate in a number of the conference sessions. That will be your chance to hear directly about what’s been accomplished over the last year and where we see it going in 2009.

In her post, Anne Camden mentions some of the new features the Ubuntu 8.04 brings. Beyond that, we took steps to make our Linux images more accessible to a global audience by including the ability to select your language during the first boot process. While this does not mean we’re shipping in every country (yet) it’s a step in the right direction. Stay tuned for a technical details post from John Hull will provide a good overview of the work we did on the new release. Similar post from him on Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 releases have proved to be pretty popular with the Linux community.

The ReGeneration Team is joining forces with Grist.org to report on the “green” conversation at this week’s Netroots Nation. We’ll be roving the halls and streets of downtown Austin asking attendees their impressions of the event and whether Netroots bloggers and candidates running for office are paying enough attention to the environment. If you are planning to be in Austin, drop by the Convention Center and share your thoughts and insights.

Dispatches from this event will be frequent, so stay tuned to ReGeneration.org as well as the environmental section of this blog for updates and reports. For my own part, I will be joining the conversation via Twitter. If you're a Tweeter, you can follow my updates via TDatReGeneration. If what transpired at SXSW this year is any indication, Twitter will play a big role, perhaps even shaping the event itself.

We’ll also be igniting the “green” conversation at a Grist/ReGeneration party this Saturday from 5-8:30pm at the Cedar Door. The first 150 people get a drink on us, and everyone qualifies for the door prize: a green Dell Inspiron 1525.

If you can't make it, you can still join the conversation by commenting on our blog posts or sending us a message via Twitter. Either way, we're looking forward to hearing from you.

We were honored to be recognized today by IDC as one of the first companies to receive their Green Recycling and Asset Disposal for the Enterprise, or G.R.A.D.E. certifications.  IDC’s new report, the 2008 Assessment of U.S. IT Asset Disposal Service Providers, Doc #213383 was released today and you can read the Dell news release here.

IDC developed this new certification in response to demand from its end-user customers about responsible ways to retire PCs and other IT hardware. The G.R.A.D.E. certification process is based on 34 IT Asset Disposal (ITAD)-related functions and tasks and uses a multi-dimensional weighting system that incorporates the broad offerings of remote applications, onsite services, logistics, in-plant processing, and post treatment. The certification is currently focused on the U.S. market. 

Dell’s asset recovery services are helping our enterprise customers responsibly retire used IT equipment and simplify the management of their enterprise by protecting against data and environmental liability and minimizing the cost of disposal.  Services we offer include value recovery, robust reporting, reverse logistics and responsible recycling.

Our continued commitment to making recycling convenient, easy and responsible for customers is not only evident through this certification, but also through our assistance to small businesses for their product recovery needs,  free and convenient product recycling for consumers and setting responsible recycling standards.

Dell’s product recycling efforts are a cornerstone of efforts to be the greenest technology company on the planet.  For more information, visit www.dell.com/earth. To join with the company and thousands of others in lending a voice and saving the planet, visit www.regeneration.org.

Since my post about multi-touch coming to Latitude XT customers via a software update. Several sites like GottaBeMobile, jkOnTheRun and Gizmodo mentioned it, and Joanna Stern from Laptop Magazine even published a pretty solid overview and video demo of the new functionality.

Now let me get to it... the download is now available for Latitude XT customers at the following links:

• Vista 32 Bit
• Vista 64 Bit
• Windows XP Tablet

If you'd rather get there on your own from the Latitude XT Drivers & Downloads page, the update is called N-Trig - Application in under the Input Device Drivers section. All versions have a date of 7/15, and both Vista versions are 14MB and the XP version is 15MB.

Here's a video where Hans Eilers from the Latitude XT team walks customers through installing and calibrating the update:

Since we introduced the award-winning Latitude XT tablet, capacitive touch capability is one thing that set it apart from the competition. Several weeks ago at the Wall Street Journal's D6: All Things Digital Conference, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer highlighted upcoming multi-touch capability that Windows 7 will bring. Chris Flores' post and video kicked off a flurry of conversations in Techmeme, and we were pumped that they used a Latitude XT was one of the machines Microsoft used show off multi-touch in Windows 7.

But, Latitude XT customers don't have to wait for Windows 7 to use multi-touch. Tomorrow we will introduce a software update globally via support.dell.com for the Dell tablet that will bring multi-touch to both Windows XP and Vista. With this update, customers can use the functionality in several standard apps like Google Earth, Outlook and Microsoft Office, web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, and XP's Windows Picture viewer and the Vista's Windows Photo Gallery. Take a look at this video from Hans Eilers and Roy Stedman from the Office of the CTO for a demo of how this works.

I'll add the link to the software update here in this post when it's ready.

Update, July 16: I forgot to update this post with the links. If you'd like a bit more detail on how the install process works, take a look at this post from yesterday.

• Vista 32 Bit
• Vista 64 Bit
• Windows XP Tablet

You may recall that in April, Lionel blogged about our intent to develop premium services and services in retail. Well, today we have a little more information to share—specifically a concept Wal-Mart will begin testing in select stores called Solution Station by Dell.

These services are designed to make it easier and more affordable for people to set up and use digital lifestyle technology. Beginning this month, Wal-Mart will be testing Solution Station by Dell services in about a dozen Dallas-area Wal-Mart stores.

These services will be available on Dell and other branded systems and include things like home television installation, PC set-up, wireless network set-up, computer upgrades, services designed to protect computers and in-home training. Wal-Mart customers in the test locations can also sign up for basic computer support and repair for their laptops and desktops.

We'll keep you posted as we explore different ways to support our retail partners in the marketplace.

Wow... it's been another year already. Lots has happened on the blog front since this time last year: we launched in Norwegian and Japanese. Beyond languages, we've also introduced seven new blogs as well: an Investor Relations blog, ReGeneration.org, Cloud Computing, Inside IT, Small Business, the Consumer blog, and the Dell Channel blog.  Earlier in February last year, we introduced accepted solutions in the Dell Community Forum and since that time, our community has volunteered over 8,500 of them.

To better support some of these new sites, several months ago we combined what used to be the blog outreach team and the Dell Community Forum to be part of our communications organization. Last night, I blogged that Dell employees worldwide can access many social media sites through the Dell firewall. Dwelling on past accomplishments is one thing... but in my view, it's more important to talk about the future. Put simply, I think the most important work we'll do remains ahead of us.

Most people know that we started monitoring the blogosphere in 2006 a few months before we launched the blog. I've said on many occasions that listening was the foundation for Direct2Dell. We need to keep it that way, and that's a more challenging thing these days since there are more places for our customers to have conversations about Dell. It's true on two fronts: both on our own expanding list of properties and in more types of sites outside of Dell. This recent story in the Boston Globe touches on a lot of it. Besides blogs and forums, more customers are using sites like Twitter and Friendfeed. We're also seeing discussions about Dell products in the comment threads  like this one on Flickr and or in YouTube.

Regardless of where the conversations occur, we have to remain focused on supporting our customers and connecting them to the conversations that are important or helpful to them. This concept is critical to all of our social media efforts, and I know we need to improve in this area.

How are we going to do that moving forward? Integrating our social media properties is the first big step. Dig a little deeper and that means shifting from a tool-based focus like we have now to a topic-based one. I talked a bit about what this means at Blog Potomac last month. Some of our customers know exactly what systems they own down to the brand and model name, but there's a lot who don't. A topic-based navigation model should help those customers who may not remember they have Inspiron 530—they can start with a desktop and work their way in. Lots more to discuss as this evolves. At this point, I can say that lots of folks within Dell are working to combine Direct2Dell, the Dell Community Forum and wikis onto a single platform.

Two years in, I think we've done a decent job reaching the tech-savvy customers who regularly interact on blogs or forums.  But there's a lot more of our customers who don't understand the difference between blogs, forums and wikis, and frankly, they shouldn't have to. Integrating these tools is a big undertaking and there's much work for us left to do on this front.

Thanks to our customers and to all the people at Dell who continue to support our social media efforts on a daily basis. Just like last year, it seems like we're just scratching the surface of what's possible.

Several weeks back, Dell as a company made a decision to give our employees access to social media sites. Todd Dwyer blogged about Facebook being open to Dell employees, and now we've expanded access to lots of other social media sites. Dell employees around the world now have access to sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut, Flickr, Twitter, Friendfeed, Plurk and more. Some of you may have noticed that I've started embedding YouTube videos within Direct2Dell blog posts.

This latest development is an evolution of our social media strategy, and I think it's a good thing. In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the early days of the Internet. The objections for not opening up access to social media sites borrows a popular argument from back then: doing so will be a drain on employee productivity. So, why did we do it? Because more of our global customer base is having conversations on these sites. Beyond that, many customers reach out to Dell for support at these sites. Seems clear that these trends will continue.

Today the Dell UK Green team held a recycling event for employees, which was successful despite the downpour of rain! From under our shelter and umbrellas we collected 9 pallets of outdated notebooks, desktops, monitors, printers and other IT equipment. We’re still counting, but we estimate this to be in the region of 2 tonnes of equipment. In addition, we have collected over 300 old mobile phones for the local Thames Valley & Chiltern Air Ambulance Trust who will recycle them and convert this to cash.

Click on the images below to view larger versions.

From the photos you can see that we collected all kind of brands of equipment, Trish for example is holding an HP notebook.

This event follows a similar employee activity in Cherrywood, where our Irish Green team collected around three quarters of a tonne of equipment on a sunny day in June.

Results like these are an indication of how Dell employees are joining Dell’s global ReGeneration movement, only with employees embracing these company values can we be the kind of company we’re striving to be – the greenest technology company in the world.