NewsIBM, Lenovo recall 526,000 Sony batteries
09/29/06 - newratings.com
NEW YORK, September 29 (newratings.com) – The world's largest technology services company, IBM Corp (IBM), and Lenovo Group Thursday announced the worldwide recall of 526,000 Sony batteries used in ThinkPad notebook computers due to a potential fire risk.
Raleigh, North Carolina-based Lenovo and Armonk, New York-based IBM said that the recall was based on an incident of a ThinkPad catching fire at Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month. Lenovo, which had acquired IBM's personal computer division in 2005, clarified that the fire did not result in any injuries and was put out with a fire extinguisher. The recall involves 526,000 batteries sold in the US between February 2005 and September 2006, separately or along with the T Series (T43, T43p, T60), R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e) and X Series (X60, X60s) ThinkPad computers.
Lenovo said that the faulty batteries would be replaced for free and that the replacement would not impact it financially since Sony is "supporting us."
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said that while risk of the Sony-made battery catching fire is small, the companies have chosen to pursue a broader recall. The world's largest personal-computer maker, Dell, and Apple Computer had last month recalled a total of 5.9 million Sony-made batteries from across the world, saying that they could produce smoke and catch fire.