Dell respond to ‘faulty computers’ suit

A few days ago we reported on the recent lawsuit to hit Dell Computers which detailed their apparent knowledge in shipping 12 million faulty machines with leaky capacitor problems.

Dell's Chief Blogger Lionel Mechaca has denied allegations that the company knowingly sold faulty computers.

He says:

Some of you may have been reading about faulty capacitors in some of our older OptiPlex desktops. Before I get into more details, I want to make some points clear:

• This is an issue we addressed with customers some years ago. The Advanced Internet Technologies lawsuit is three years old and does not involve any current Dell products.
• Dell did not knowingly ship faulty motherboards, and we worked directly with customers in situations where the issue occurred.
• This was not a Dell-specific issue, but an industry-wide problem.
• Dell extended the warranty for up to five years for customers who had affected machines.
• This is not a safety issue

As noted in a New York Times article about the lawsuit, faulty capacitors were manufactured by Nichicon, a respected, long-term supplier to many industries. These capacitors were used by Dell suppliers at certain times from 2003 to 2005. The faulty Nichicon capacitors affected many manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, Apple and others, as discussed in the initial story and several blog posts afterward. Again, this was an industry-wide problem.

Unfortunately for Lionel the response to his public posting has not been particularly positive.

One poster Zoder says: “The big problem is the loss of trust after reading about those internal emails.  The first thought I had was the experiences and problems the XPS 630i customers posted about back in 2008.  I never felt all of the big issues were fully addressed by Dell at the time and now I have to wonder how many of the technical problems that were brought up were sugar coated.  Was Dell aware of real technical defects that you kept hidden.  Defects that would have warrented engineering new parts?  Were we instead fed half thruths to save Dell money until the complaints died with the change to DCF?

Hopefully Dell's corporate culture has changed over the past few years.   Even if the company has indeed changed, this disclosure can destroy any progress you have made in the eyes of the public.  Understandably, you are limited to what you can say about pending litigation but I feel Michael Dell himself needs to address the public on this issue.  You need to assure your customers that they can trust the company they are doing business with.”

KitGuru says: Are Dell still to be trusted? Let us know your views

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