Whatever sins of omission or commission the United States government is planning on charging Dell with once its two-year investigation is over have got to pale beside Dell's current abuse of a poor dead language.

Long-buried Latin masters were sent spinning in their graves Tuesday when Dell introduced a new line of small business computers that it branded "Vostro," saying in was Latin for "yours."

Oh, no, it ain't. Italian, yes, not Latin, not by a long shot. Don't they have dictionaries in Texas? Doesn't anybody look anything up anymore? Is this an example of due diligence?

As we have said many times privately education will not return to America until they return Latin to the high school curriculum.

Anyway, it was probably the shades of all those dead Latin teachers that hexed Dell's stock and caused it to drop on the announcement that the companyd a new line of small business notebooks and laptops good at data backup and specialized at networking for people who don't have a dedicated IT staff.

The Vista- or XP-based hardware, free of so-called revenue-generating pre-installed "trialware," is aimed at supposedly underserved, budget-constrained companies with less than 25 people and consists of the Vostro 1000, 1400, 15000 and 1700 notebooks starting at $449; a 200 mini-tower or slim-sized desktop starting at $319 and a $229 19-inch monitor. Some sort of performance desktop is due next month.

There are supposed to be automated support tools customized for small businesses that are free for the first year like Automated PC Tune-Up, Network Assistant and DataSafe Online, the last for backing up 10GB of data.

The line, which Dell hopes to grow at twice the industry average, is supposed to slip in under the Latitude and Optiplex brands for larger accounts and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

IDC says the SMB market is growing at 7%-10% a year. Dell says it has 6,500 sales and service people focused on the small business market, a notoriously hard market to get your arms around.

Dell is apparently anxious to push the Vostro gear in India.