Thursday, September 14, 2006

Dell Contradicts Itself

About the batteries recall:

Dell blames the explosion of Laptops on Sony. They say that they "know exactly why there was a problem. Sony had contaminated its cells in the manufacturing process. The batteries were contaminated and were no good no matter what you did with them". One must assume that Dell discovered this problem after there were some (espectacular) explosions.

But then, the question remains: Why did all the explosions occurred with Dell laptops but not any other brand that also uses Sony batteries?

Was it bad luck? I don't think so. I think that more Vaio computers alone use Sony batteries than Dell, H-P is also a customer. Thus the fact that the explosions clustered in Dell laptops to a significant degree demonstrates that there is something wrong with Dell's usage of those batteries.

What is Dell doing? accepting their part of the responsibility for this mishap? No. They keep playing the game of blames, lies, and fraud that got them in the hole. It is not only I who is claiming this, the SEC has its doubts and has been investigating Dell, in California, a class action began against Dell. I wholeheartedly advise to read this filing because this may be history in the making. [The link as been corrected, thank you anonymous commentator]

Before going on with the class action, I want to tell an anecdote: Early in February I took bearish positions on Dell, fully aware of all the many problems that have become so patently evident these weeks, and by the way, I also participated very actively in the Dell message board under my former nick. Thus Dell's financial manipulation got to hurt the profits I should have made on that company. I am not angry at the money I didn't win, on the contrary, I feel vindicated because my calculations were rigth. But I still think that Dell is a company that deserves the severe punishment of bankruptcy. It doesn't matter that it now sells AMD processors, its products still stink big time, their customer service is customer disservice, they keep cooking the books, they keep applying smoke screens and mirrors to distract the observers off their problems, they still don't do any research and development but only screwdriver assembly and rebranding of Logitech, EMC, Lexmark, etc; no innovation, they have an absurd book value multiplier, and they still hide from everyone not to face tough questions. Enron LogotypeDell LogotypeHave you noticed how similar Dell's and Enron's logotypes are? --- InHell, Dellron, Dellusionals...

The thread of Dell badmouthing AMD is long. Incredibly, they now solve it with a simple: "We were overconfident in Intel and underestimated AMD".

If you want to know more about the inside of Dell, you may follow this link to a fantastic thread initiated by a Dell insider, take your time and digg.

It is a shame that I didn't write much about Dell for the blog, but Syndrome did:

About the "WeekX", and remember that Dell is hiding from everyone, there are so many questions not answered... The used to provide guidance, not anymore. They pumped in Febraury's Conference Call/Earnings Report their super duper Analysts Meeting in April, they deflected tough questions by delaying them to April, meeting which was postponed to September (this month), which was recently cancelled... The links and details at Syndrome's.

Note: For explanations about why I call Sharikou "Syndrome", refer to this article, a very good one

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very intriguing post. Chica, you appear to be a very smart man. I admire your candor and your intellectual integrity.

Two comments:

Your link to the class action filing is hosed... it includes your comment "because this is history in the making" in the actual URL, rather than in your sentence.

Also, slap Howling around for me and get him to respond to my comments about the many faces of Nehalem!

Eddie said...

Hey, thanks for the correction.

Thank you also for your praising.

It would improve a lot your chances to get Howling to keep on the thread if you used at least a "nick" like "imnotanonymous", but anyway he must be busy

Anonymous said...

Guess I didn't notice the option to do so before. Hey Howling, read the first response by anonymous (the Nehalem part)!

Anonymous said...

Chica, your name calling only shows that you are out of ammo. Grow up.

I studied Chavez and he is supported by majority your fellow countrymen, go home and follow his leadership.

I prediected an Enron scenario back in 2005 and I emailed Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins about my projections. I warned them that once a company collapses, Feds will knock their doors to find scapegoats... I don't know what they thought about my predictions back then, but I am sure they now find my predictions quite scary...

----Sharikou, Ph. D

Eddie said...

Syndrome, you have exhausted all you ammunition against me at the very first salvo. What else can you do other than naming Chávez?

I can, instead, say that you are intellectually dishonest, a psycho, a manipulator and a stock market loser.

howling2929 said...

imnotquiteasanonymous:

As you may (or may not know) from my postings, I am doing an MBA, and I am sort of in a crunch. that is one of the reasons why, istead of opening my very own blog, I asked Chi to coauthor his. That way I need not concern myself with frequent updates or replies to comments (this is a subtle way to say that I do not want to be presured about answering every single comment, you seem a very reasonable man, so probably can adap to that).

Altough I am an electronics engineer (and,among other things, memeber of the IEEE for 14 years, alternating betwen the Computer and Comms Societies) I, nowadays, prefer to let Chicagrafo use his blog to discuss the technical aspects with a more technicall edge (but I not always agree with him), and I prefer to study how the technology impacts the strategy.

I do not know why Nehalem was altered so many times. But remember, codenames are codenames, and there are just so many rivers in the US, sometimes, you have to recycle names. ;-)

******

Mr. Ph.D.:

Oftentimes, is not only the scalar value that maters, but the vector as well. If Mr. Chavez was elected democraticaly, but his administration is systematicaly moving towards an authritarian state, well it may not be correct that the guy is a dictator right now (Chicagrafo disagrees with me on this point), but it is very correct to say that he is well on his way to become one (and fast). Study the Chavez case some more.

By the way ¿what was your Ph.D. about? I ask just out of curiosity. You already know I am an electronic engineer doing my MBA, so I expect you to reply in kindness.


Salud!