>>> Continued from previous message
to Lee, and Japanese firms may be trying to win back lost market
share.

Lien Yan's Lee says that Japanese customers who stopped buying
from his company even showed the firm internal documents written
in Japanese that state that any relationship with Lien Yan would
lead to boycotts on the part of the Japanese firm's customers.
(The notices often misspelled Lien Yan as "Lein Yan" or
"Lenyan.")
"After checking all names of [capacitor] companies accused by
Japanese companies, we discovered that almost all had never purchased
our products," Lien Yan said in a statement.


Soldering in silence

While Taiwanese passives makers are trying to shore up relations
with their customers, some of the computer firms affected are
doing the same. ABIT says it will replace or fix defective boards
its customers send it. IBM says it alerted those customers it
believes are most likely to be affected and is handling repairs
under warranty.

Other manufacturers have been less helpful. As Gary Headlee's
capacitor replacement side business grew, he began receiving
damaged boards built by other companies besides ABIT. But when
he posted the list of other boards on his Web site, he received
letters from lawyers representing two manufacturers, prompting
him to pull the posting.

Carey Holzman, as a builder of custom PCs, has been trying to
raise awareness about the defects since last spring. He thinks
manufacturers should be more public about the problem and issue
a recall. "Main board replacement is a big job. It's a huge amount
of downtime for the user," he says. Failures can also occur after
the warranty has expired, he points out. "The manufacturers should
do the right thing."

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...That is my theory, it is mine, and belongs to me and I own it,
   and what it is too.

  * SLMR 2.1a *

--- Maximus 3.01