Dell "X-Image"

Kevin Devin ran across Dell's X-Image tool.  He wonders if this is not the same Microsoft Ximage tool.  From this article you can see it clearly is not.  Rather, it is an internally developed Dell tool they started work on in 2001.  It was developed for Windows 2000 and Windows XP as opposed to the Ximage tool Microsoft has developed with Vista.  What will be interesting is to see if Dell continues with their own internally developed tool or migrates to the tool provided by Microsoft.  Recall the Wimgapi API set is public.  Since the APIs are built into Vista and supported by Microsoft I wouldn't be surprised to see Dell move in that direction.