Newly released court documents have alleged that Dell knew about and covered up problems with millions of computers in 2003 and 2004. On Thursday, Dell responded on its company blog that the problems were related to faulty capacitors provided by its supplier, adding that it "did not knowingly ship faulty motherboards." The problematic products are the subject of a three-year-old civil lawsuit against the computer maker.
Dell spokesperson Lionel Menchaca wrote on the company blog that the quality of the capacitors was "not a Dell-specific issue, but an industry-wide problem" from supplier Nichicon. According to documents recently unsealed in the lawsuit by Advanced Internet Technologies (A.I.T.), Dell sold at least 11.8 million computers that could have failed or did fail because of the capacitors.
Hewlett-Packard and Apple also used components and had problems with some of their products, but, if the lawsuit's figures are accurate, the magnitude of the problem was much greater at Dell.
The company noted that it had extended the warranty up to five years for customers with faulty machines, and that no safety issues were involved. However, industry experts contend that problematic capacitors could have led to fires.
A.I.T., an Internet services company, said it lost millions of dollars in business because of 2,000 faulty computers it bought from Dell. According to documents in the lawsuit, Dell examined the bad computers and said A.I.T. had essentially caused many of the problems by using them too heavily in a space with a high room temperature.
The lawsuit contends that Dell knew about the problems, but tried to cover them up. An e-mail among customer-support staff, recently released in the lawsuit, stated that employees "need to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had 'issues.'" Other e-mails directed employees to "emphasize uncertainty," and to avoid bringing motherboard...
Posted: 2010-07-02 14:36:47
