Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

Dell's Extended Warranties: Though its hardware sales have flattened, the importance of Dell's extended warranty program continues to rise. While a few years ago it was twice as large as the product warranty operation, now it's four times larger. And it accounts for a rising percentage of the company's total revenue.
January 24, 2013
Computer OEM Warranty Metrics: There are multiple ways to look at the same statistics. And there are multiple ways to gauge cost-cutting, consistency, and accuracy with warranty totals and estimates. In different ways, using different metrics, Apple, HP and Dell are each leading their industry.
December 13, 2012
Computer Warranties: At the half-year mark, HP is up and Dell is down, while Apple and Seagate keep their warranty costs under control. At Lexmark and Palm, however, already-elevated warranty costs keep going higher.
September 18, 2008
Dell's Warranty Accounting: While it came up short in terms of scandal and financial impact, Dell's accounting investigation did produce one benefit. At long last, the company separated its basic and extended warranty programs. And it turns out that extended warranty was even bigger than we thought.
November 7, 2007
Aerospace Warranties: In this industry, there doesn't seem to be a wide gap between the claims paid by aircraft makers and their suppliers, as is the case with cars and computers. In this respect, the makers of Boeing, Cessna, and Gulfstream aircraft are different from Ford, GM, HP, and Dell.
October 2, 2007
Computer & Peripheral Warranties: At midyear, it looks like many of the major brand names continue to cut their warranty expenses, as do many of their suppliers. But soon Dell will restate its warranty accruals and that could erase the declines completely. Or will it add to them?
September 18, 2007
Computer Warranties: Though warranty costs increased only slightly for PC makers as a group in 2006, a few companies saw radical changes in their claims and accrual rates. And Dell's still missing, with no new warranty data in almost a year.
May 8, 2007
Dell's Warranty Accounting: Dell is now seriously late with its quarterly financial reports because of investigations some say were prompted by its peculiar warranty accounting methods. Meanwhile, Apple's seems to have turned a corner regarding its recent iPod warranty problems.
January 9, 2007
Computer Warranties: It's entirely possible that HP, Dell, and IBM are each now paying roughly the same percentage of their hardware revenue to satisfy warranty claims. A year ago, HP was paying much more, and Dell and IBM were paying less.
November 9, 2005
Dell Cuts Warranty Cost,
Raises Warranty Revenue: Doing both at the same time is possible with
a shift towards extended warranty options.
May 12, 2003