Product recalls are certainly nothing new to the tech industry, but two significant PC players (Dell and Apple) having to recall a collective 5.9 million batteries has to sting just a little for Sony. Macworld is reporting that the Japanese company announced an estimate on the cost of said sting: between ¥20 billion to ¥30 billion (US$172 million to $258 million). The moral of this story? QA is a good thing.Let's hope the upcoming summit in San Francisco on li-ion battery manufacturing standards - jointly held by the likes of Apple, HP, Dell and Lenovo - helps cut down on the exploding notebooks so we can all get back to our daily routines.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-25-2006 @ 11:40AM
Jon said...
From the moment Mr Morita died, SONY has gone straight into the crapper.
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8-25-2006 @ 11:42AM
Leonard Nimrod said...
The good news is that Apple no longer uses Lithium Ion, they use Lithium Polymer Ion. The pros and cons of these new fangled batteries are:
Pros:
- They can molded into any shape.
- 20% longer usage per charge over same size Li-Ion
- NOT PRONE TO CATCHING ON FIRE
Cons:
- They cost a little more
- Do not get them wet (they react poorly with water)
- Do not feed them after midnight (I needed a 3rd thing)
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8-25-2006 @ 1:04PM
Jootec from Mars said...
Just goes to show that not testing something enough before it goes to market can cost you dearly.
There is something here that all companies should learn from.
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8-25-2006 @ 1:08PM
Matthew said...
> helps cut down on the exploding notebooks so we can all get back to our daily routines.
You can write whatever you want, it's your blog, but lose language like that perpetuates the myth that many Apple customers have been and will be affected by these batteries. Simply untrue and misleading.
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8-25-2006 @ 1:19PM
Brad said...
I smell bullshit about the actual price of the recall. I think Sony is trying to cover their butts for this.
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8-25-2006 @ 5:09PM
xSmurf said...
What really strikes me is, as reported by engadget - but the math isn't hard to do, that these batteries sell retail for over $120, yet even with the cost of the recall these are worth at worst $33 to produce. Why such a high margin?? This is totally ridiculous. Maybe they should talk about this during the summit!
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8-26-2006 @ 1:41PM
Ralph Lewis said...
The percentage of failures is hardly measurable, but had to be corrected. Expensive but necessary.
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8-28-2006 @ 9:26AM
kary said...
I just hope no one got seriously injured as a result of these faullty batteries, I just wonder how much testing went into the battery to make sure it was safe to use.The recall might sting but losing civil suits could cost in the Billions
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