According to the New York Times, previously sealed legal documents have now revealed the extent to which Dell attempted to cover up problems that were causing its systems to fail in huge numbers.
The papers refer to a law suit between Dell and Advanced Internet Technologies that was settled for an undisclosed sum in September of this year.
The problems arose because of low-quality capacitors that plagued much of the consumer electronics industry between 2003 and 2005. However, whereas other companies took a more active approach, it appears that Dell attempted to downplay the gravity of the situation and keep customers in the dark.
Internal data suggested that in September 2004, the company adjusted its failure rate estimates for Optiplex SX270 systems from 12 per cent up to 45 per cent, noting that it could be as high as 97 per cent. Nonetheless, presentations discouraged employees from "[bringing] this to customer's attention proactively" and suggested that they "emphasize uncertainty".
Furthermore, the company provided reps with answers to common questions that tried to divert attention from the issue. Once the scale of the problems became apparent, Dell also ranked large customers by the likelihood that they would move to another manufacturer in the future, and provided service accordingly.
A Dell spokesman understandably played down the significance of the documents, stating that "Dell actively investigated failures, we fixed on fail computers that suffered a capacitor issue and we extended the warranties on all the possibly affected motherboards."
He added that "this was an industrywide issue and to our knowledge no other manufacturer issued a recall".
