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Edward Englebart, Chair of ACSA, warns against Laptop
Fires.
In a brief meeting with the Press, Dr. Englebart cited the Dell vs.
Shulman litigation dating back to November 2005, which was based upon
allegations made publicly by Shulman in response to the alleged
harassment of CompAmerica by Dell "stealth reseller" Premiere Networks
and Dell. During it Shulman was quoted in the press as citing IBM,
APPLE, DELL and SONY as "potential fire hazards" from laptops that did
not institute special heat sensing apparatuses and power management
technology.
Dell sued over the allegations citing "commercial libel" for criticisms
of its products by a competitor. The suit allegedly went no where
and was eventually dismissed by Dell.
Today, Dr. Englebart once again cited Dell, IBM, Apple and Sony for use
of "power technology and battery management which might lead to fire
hazards." Once again, Dell, IBM and Apple contacted the ACSA and
threatened litigation if ACSA continued to name them in these
allegations.
It is of note that two of the threatening firms were previously cited by
the Safety Counsel and had to recall Batteries, Dell and Apple.
Englebart added all four companies have strong financial relationships
that connect each other at the board level, and that if they did not add
battery bay heat sensors, trickle charge down power controllers and
failure sensing autoshutoff AC adapters to their products, that fire
safety hazards might endanger buyer welfare.
Lawyers from Dell
contacted ACSA with threats of litigation in response to the public
charges by Englebart. ACSA counsel indicated that Dell also
contacted co-chair Shulman's counsel and threatened him with further
Federal Litigation if he did not order the ACSA to cease publicizing
technical problems alleged of Dell's systems.
The ACSA being a private charitable foundation, upon
advice of counsel, hereby states that feels no obligation to silence
itself at Dell's demand, since it derives no profit from nor is making
any unfair, unreasonable nor inaccurate statements about Dell.
ACSA suggests that Dell should spend its time resolving its customer
care responsibilities. |
