Slashdot Mirror
Dell Battery Recall- Win for the Web
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an article on how the Dell recalls show the true power of the web and how the attack on the Dell batteries evolved on the web. From the article:
But in cyberspace the race was on to dig out every last byte of 'truth' about those flaming PCs. Gadget news blogs like Gizmodo and Engadget spat out facts and rumors with equal zeal. They were relentless advocates for the consumer, too. On July 31, Engadget posted photos of a Dell notebook that had caught fire in Singapore. Its comment: 'We'll keep posting these until we see a recall or a solution, so please, Dell, treat 'em right.'"
Cool! First Po...(bang!)
This, of course, assumes that "the web" was directly at cause for the eventual recall.
Having worked QA for a competitor of Dell's that's under similar scrutiny, and knowing what mechanisms we had in place, I would imagine that the various bloggers had - at best - a tangential relationship to the end game here. Of course, that's assuming that Dell has QA mechanisms in place that are at least half as smart as ours were...
woof!
I'm just surprised Dell owned up to replacing 4 million batteries. that's a pretty big kick in the wallet for Dell. the funny thing is that Sony was the battery manufacturer; Dell just purchased the batteries from Dell and stuck them in their laptops. I wonder if sony will bear the financial burden when all is said and done.
There is no reason to think that JUST because the images and such where going around the web, Dell wouldnt have recalled them any later than they had. For one thing the recall hardly effected Dell, as the batteriers themselves where Sonys fuckup not theirs (and as such are effecting Apple too and possibly other companes) Secondly there is no evidence that it was just because of the exploding battery incidents that they where recalled.... they could have been planning a recall well before this.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
In many ways, this can only be a good thing. Years ago, it was always a bit easier for companies to have defective products or bad customer service because there was no way to really get information out to the masses.
Because information can now get distributed to millions of people by pressing an Enter key, it's great to see that things like this can be exposed. If anything, this should make companies look more closely at product quality and customer service -- or so we would hope. After all, a common mantra in marketing circles is that people rarely say anything when a product does what it's expected to do, but you can be sure they'll let as many people as possible know when something goes wrong.
AFAIK Sony are coughing up for this one. I read that this plus the ongoing PS3 and Blue-ray issues are being cited as wrecking their attempts at a turnaround this year.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'm really sick of these "bloggers are great" article. There are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there. Nearly all of them are irrelevent crap. Some have evolved through effort and investment into almost proper news sites. Congratualtions to them. Now stop calling yourself blogs. You're news sites (because you don't just post unsubstanciated crap).
:)
Face it folks, your "blogosphere" is a mob of people who believe anything that their favorite "blog aka news site" posts, and that is ANYTHING AT ALL at times, and repost it themselves, often not even bothering to change a single character. They have no power, and never will. It's essentially the same as the fat outraged bloke in the pub that never shuts up about what he read in The Sun, despite not ever checking facts, figures, or common sense. I wish people would stop glamorising this crap.
And I'd like to say one more time, to all those who DO use their brains, and use sources, and not fly off the handle (like the O'Reilly incident), thanks for the news.
To Slashdot I say: Check the stories.
End of Rant
Rational thought is the only true freedom
You are correct, Sony is footing most of the bill. The funny thing is, the majority of the batteries involved (in the older D600 series and across the line) have already gone to battery heaven due to their age and lack of storage ability. None of my 6 clients with D600's had a battery affected by the recall.
Dell estimated the bill at around $300m USD so it's just a one-time write-off for Sony. With their total sales of $71.2B USD in 2004, I doubt that 300m USD will hurt them at all. It's more painful for their reputation than anything. After all, when big boys like Dell and Apple rely on you for batteries and you give them C4, they get upset.
I'm waiting for an episode of Survivor Man where they give him a Dell laptop instead of a box of matches.
[beavis voice:] "Fire, Fire, Fire!!!"
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Why do you think these companies recalled the batteries? By choice? No, once it was discovered the laptops could explode the government forced the recall so terrorists would not buy hundreds of laptops and turn them on while flying...
Think about it.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Didn't Apple just recall well over a million batteries for pretty much the same exact reason?
Why is it that when someone like Dell has a problem leading to a recall it's assumed they were doing something wrong. Either they're trying to cover up defects, or they're unresponsive to customers or everything they make is crap.
Why is it that when the same exact thing happens with Apple suddenly the apologists come out of the woodwork. The defect isn't Apple's fault first of all, and when Apple finally gets around to acknowledging the problem and recalls the product people insist that it proves they care about the customer.
Dell laptops come with defective Sony batteries: Dell is crap.
Apple laptops come with defective Sony batteries: It's all Sony's fault.
Dell recalls batteries: Dell would never have initiated the recall if it hadn't been for bloggers.
Apple recalls batteries: Behold Apple's benevolence.
When the "blog-O-sphere" gets it wrong, will there be any mainstream media left that's not already been cyber-whipped and pixel-chastised enough who might call them on it?
The Guillotine has gone out of fashion, and been replaced by The Drudge Report. That still places civilization ahead.
I think...
There will come a day when innuendo replaces fact, thanks to the rapidity with which things spread on the Internet. One blogger picks up on something, two more repeat it, and so forth and so on. Of course, like the game we all used to play in school, where someone whispered something to you, and you to the next person, invariably the original message becomes garbled. The Internet is just a large example of this, as the story gets repeated and tweaked with each iteration, as bloggers apply their own personal view to it. There comes a point where fact-checking is impossible, because the "facts" are no longer that, facts.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
There's a TV programme in the UK called Watchdog. They complain to companies on behalf of customers, who have not been able to get the service they expect. The amalgamation of many complaints plus the visible negative publicity usually gets the company to change their position.
How is this any different? It's not a win for the web at all, but a win for people who complain en masse, and a win for negative publicity shocking a company into action.
Apparently Dell were "EMBRACING THE BLOGOSPHERE". Yet this only happened after the recall was announced.
If there's one thing that's missing in our modern hi-tech society it's modern hi-tech assessment of risk.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Without the might power of flaming Youtube videos, I am sure the recall would have taken DAY later.
I am sure that UPS and the USPS, for example, don't give a fig if a plane with some laptops on it catches on fire every now and then. They are huge evil corporations! Keep it up INTERWEB! SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
How is it that we netizens seemingly can effect change on an issue like this, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty minor, but are at the same time seemingly unable to effect changes on issues which really effect us (bad laws governing the internet, DRM, etc)? It seems like all we care about are things which cause problems with our material goods, rather than things which can potentially effect us personally...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
My guess is that the Business Week author is too young to remember how a 1994 post by Terje Mathisen to comp.sys.intel on USENET ultimately resulted in the recall of millions of Intel Pentium chips for the fdiv bug.
What?
/.
... Well, does it say anything else?
First Po...(bang!)
What is that?
It must have exploded while he typed it.
Oh, come on.
Well that's what it says.
Look, if it was exploding, he wouldn't bother to write "(bang!)". It'd just say it!
Well that's what's written on the
Perhaps he was dictating.
Oh, shut up.
No, just, "Bang".
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs