Written by Erik Sherman at CBS Moneywatch –

The lawsuit is three years old and the story continues. When a company makes a colossal error, it can simply make a clear breast of it, take its lumps, and recover. Or, it can try to bury the story, protect itself by claiming innocence, and prolong the pain. That’s the route that Dell has taken.

In July, Dell tried to deny fault and simply ignore how it allegedly ignored customers who were having problems with computers plagued by bad parts. And some of the explanations in the past were real hoots. For example, Dell told the University of Texas math department that the machines went bad because intense calculations overtaxed them. Right, the machines were actually supposed to be coasters and were only missing the sign that said, “Warning, Don’t Use For Math.”

Apparently taking responsibility was too risky.

This seems to me to be an obvious case of thinking only as far as the next quarter.

Any kind of long term thinking or ethical thinking would have called for a different action.

James Pilant