Red Alert - by Dell - Who is more affected???

Dell announced a massive recall of sold out Notebooks and laptops for replacing the lithium ion battery which potentially has the risk of getting overheated and in turn causing the laptop to burn out.

The problem is reported with Dell using the lithium ion batteries supplied by Sony Inc., Dell also recalls that the issue is widespread around 4.1 million laptops that were sold between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year.

Although Sony has agreed to do the replacement of all the affected batteries with nickel-cadmium batteries and also would bear the cost of the replacement (around $200 million to $400 million) the answer to one question is still unclear as to who will be more affected with this laptop recall...Dell or its partner Sony???

In my opinion, from a customer's point of view Dell is going to be affected as a customer who's going to buy any Dell products would rethink his choice once again before buying...But in terms of strategic relationship, quality committment and business Sony is going to have a tough time as Companies might rethink their collaboration with Sony because of this production flaw in its batteries...

More details in the following link...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060816/ap_on_hi_te/dell_battery_recall

- Suresh Gangadharan