Jack -
CPQ needs to do better PR here. The "floppy problem" in the Toshiba lawsuit was related to a floppy controller that Toshiba designed and manufactured. CPQ never designed or manufactured floppy controllers, and never used the Toshiba design. The problem which resulted in the Toshiba settlement related to products manufactured in the late '80s and early '90s, not current products. The claim of the Beaumont lawyers is that CPQ used parts which incorporated features of the Toshiba design (which were licensed by Intel). There has been no linkage that I have seen between the Intel design and the Toshiba problems, but apparently the mere fact that Intel licensed SOME design IP from Toshiba at about the same time as Toshiba was having their floppy problems caused the Beaumont lawyers to go after the next target. I doubt if those guys have the technical sophistication to understand much more than the company names and that this has something to do with floppy disks.
CPQ has always posted patches to improve performance or fix problems which appear in CPQ products, whether those problems are caused by CPQ designs or not. This is one of the ways in which CPQ engineering pays off for customers - CPQ gets fixes out before other manufacturers are even aware of problems. The fixes may get around problems in Intel processor or peripheral chips, disk controllers, third party network or modem cards, video cards, memory systems... and CPQ routinely posts lots of patches every week. They have a broad product line and respond quickly to any issue which they discover, either through internal testing or from customer feedback.
The current "floppy" issue relates to a condition which might occur on some Presario models due to a design issue in an Intel-supplied controller chip. Since Intel supplies the vast majority of those products in today's market, it is likely that most of the PCs produced over the last few years have the potential for the problem. The fact that there has not been a single instance of a customer complaint means that the problem is hard to create and unlikely to happen, since with the many millions of PCs out there, there is a big base of opportunity.
Some people have pointed to the "coincidence" that CPQ issued a floppy patch when the floppy suit was pending - but the suit has been pending for months and will be in process for years. What should CPQ do if they detect an issue with floppies in some of their product lines? Ignore it? Especially when it has nothing to do with the issues in the lawsuit?
The press is just looking for an issue and CPQ should be more proactive in presenting the facts. |
