Dell sued over Chinese chip error
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Dell sued over Chinese chip error
Graeme Wearden
ZDNet UK
August 11, 2006, 17:25 BST
Consumers are up in arms in China after they bought Dell laptops that promised to support virtualisation, only to find they contained an inferior chip
Dell is facing legal battles in China after shipping laptops that contained a less powerful processor than was advertised.
According to reports, a lawsuit was filed against Dell by 19 consumers in the the eastern city of Xiamen. Dell is accused of shipping Inspiron 640M laptops which were said to contain T2300 chips. Instead, they contained T2300E processors, which unlike the T2300 don't support virtualisation.
An earlier lawsuit was filed against Dell in late July in Shanghai.
Faced with a consumer backlash in China, where Dell is in a tough fight with Lenovo for market share, the company has now apologised and offered a refund to those affected.
In a posting on the company's Direct2Dell Web site, Francis Kam, director of Dell's client sales support in China, admitted that Dell had shifted to the T2300E chip for some notebook models in some countries.
"In all markets of the world where we offer it, the T2300E allows us to provide a better value for customers who are not interested in virtualization," wrote Kam. "HereÂ’s what caused the confusion: We did not update marketing materials in China prior to making the change to the T2300E processor."
As this product specification sheet from Intel shows, the T2300E is rare among Core Duo chips in not supporting virtualisation, which allows a computer to run multiple operating systems at the same time. -
A Tale of Two Processors in China Thu. August 10, 2006
Francis Kam, Director - China Client Sales Support
A recent lawsuit involving Dell and some of our Chinese customers has received attention in blogs and press like this recent Xinhua Net story. On his blog, Sam Flemming provides a timeline about the issue. I manage the team responsible for contacting affected customers and wanted to clarify additional details.
The fundamental issue revolves around two different processors: Intel¡¯s Core Duo T2300 and the T2300E. In China, and in other countries around the world, we shifted from the T2300 to the T2300E processor in some notebook models. What¡¯s the difference between those processors? The T2300E does not support Intel¡¯s Virtualization Technology, a feature primarily aimed at server and workstation customers interested in running multiple operating systems on the same machine. In all markets of the world where we offer it, the T2300E allows us to provide a better value for customers who are not interested in virtualization.
Here¡¯s what caused the confusion: We did not update marketing materials in China prior to making the change to the T2300E processor. In response, here are the steps we have taken:
We have acknowledged the issue, and we have corrected the error in all materials.
We have directly apologized to Dell China customers who were affected, and also informed them of the difference between the two processors.
For customers who were not satisfied with these actions, we offered full refunds for returned T2300E-based systems.
Many customers have accepted our apology, some have accepted our refund offer. We are still working it out with others. -
You seem to have this fetish with dell getting in hot soup.
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Dwayne said:
First there are Flaming notebooks, then there are issues with the XPS 700 causing delays in shipment, then there is the issue where Washington State residents were over taxed when purchasing your systems and now there is the issue of swapping processors. Do you at Dell really have no respect for your customers anymore? What has happened to the company that once preached "The Customer Experience"?
After purchasing over 10 Dell machines in over a decade's period of time, I can honestly say that you have lost me as a customer. I will probably turn to HP since they do not seem to have the problems that Dell does. As a footnote, I have seen the store in Dallas and whoever thought of the ideal to have a store in a mall that does not offer products for immediate sale needs to be fired.
August 10, 2006 6:53 PM
For more comments to direct-to-dell website, http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/08/10/1688.aspx -
no lah...i a surfer of tech websites, and recently all the news centering around Dell only...if there are other important news of other companies, i will put also.
