Device Management: Addressing the Dell Battery Recall without Draining Resources

You're no doubt aware of the Dell notebook battery recall. At 4.1 million batteries, it's the largest recall in the history of the electronics industry. This recall affects Dell Inspiron, Latitude and Precision mobile workstations and XPS units shipped between April 2004 and July 18, 2006 that include certain Sony batteries.

The recall made big news in the media and has prompted several airlines to either ban the use of Dell notebooks during flights or insist that passengers use an external power source with the batteries removed. In fact, to mitigate the risk of potential fire or explosion, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends immediately powering down and removing batteries from affected systems and using the AC power adapter until a replacement battery is obtained.

Tracking Software and Hardware Distribution
Since notebooks are mobile in nature, how do you determine which of your corporate notebooks are affected by the recall and whether or not the user has requested a replacement battery from Dell? Device Management from iPass can greatly simplify this and many other processes. Customers and industry luminaries regularly tout this solution's ability to automate software distribution and updates to mobile and remote systems. However, it's equally adept at simplifying hardware upgrades.

Here's how: The default inventory collected by Device Management already contains detailed information regarding the battery, battery manufacturer, computer manufacturer and model. Your administrators can use this information and the power of Device Management to:

• Determine which machines in your organization are affected
• Inform individual end users that their machines are affected
• Interact with end users to get their batteries ordered and replaced
• Determine if and when batteries have been replaced on client systems
• Track the process with detailed reporting and inventory information

Targeting Affected Machines
The computer models and batteries affected by the recall include:

• Latitude system models D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800 and D810
• Inspiron system models 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505 and E1705
• Precision workstation system models M20, M60, M70 and M90
• XPS system models XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170 and XPS M1710

Note: Only Sony batteries with specific serial numbers and dates are affected. Visit www.dellbatteryprogram.com for more details.