CapacitorPlague
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Dell responds to latest capacitor-related fallout, ignores the whole lying to consumers part
The "capacitor plague" issue of the early 2000's has started to resurface, not thanks to another batch of bogus orange-hued electrolytes popping free, but this time thanks to the release of documents relating to a three year-old Dell lawsuit. As we reported earlier this week, those docs show that Dell asked customer service reps to deny there was any problem with their motherboards, telling them to pretend they'd never heard about the issue and to "emphasize uncertainty." Now, Dell is responding to the latest flare up -- sort of. A post on the Direct2Dell blog reiterates that this was an industry-wide issue, which it was, but more or less ignores the crux of this latest report: those internal memos telling CSRs to play stupid while corporate IT departments panicked as OptiPlex desktops died left and right. (Boxes manufactured during those troublesome years would ultimately achieve an amazing 97 percent failure rate.) Dell also points out that AIT, the company that raised this particular lawsuit, was improperly using its OptiPlex machines as servers and not as mere desktops. That sounds an awful lot like sour grapes to us -- or should we say sour electrolytes?
Documents show that Dell knowingly sold defective computers, misled those needing support
What happens when capacitors go bad, spewing out their tangerine innards like the ones in the photo above? Components die. In the early to mid naughties there was a rash of failures, the so-called "capacitor plague" that affected many manufacturers thanks to millions of bogus units filled with an electrolyte mixture that was a bit off. However, nobody was quite affected like Dell. The company took a $300 million charge in 2005 to cover costs related to the faulty machines that went out with these components, and now we're getting a better picture of just how bad it was -- and continues to be. According to recently released documents stemming from a three year-old lawsuit, Dell not only knew about the bogus components but some of its employees were actively told to play dumb, one memo sent to customer service reps telling them to "avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had issues." Meanwhile, sales teams were still selling funky OptiPlex machines, which during that period had a 97 percent failure rate according to Dell's own study. (And you thought the Xbox 360 had problems.) With that on the minds of shoppers, plus Throttlegate and some other recent laptop quality issues, we have to think consumer confidence for Dell must be at an all-time low at the moment. [Image courtesy of Bushtails]
