A battery of recalls: Lenovo's turn again

Here we go again with laptop batteries. Ths time it's Lenovo and its ThinkPad line. Lenovo is voluntarily replacing 205,000 extended life batteries which if exposed to a sharp impact can overheat. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the mother of all laptop battery recalls: Dell's calling back four million litium ion batteries. Those batteries carried a risk of exploding or catching fire. But it's smaller than Lenovo's 526,000 battery recall in September.

The Dell recall sent Dell into a tailspin. The company's growth tapered off sharply in 2006, sparking a change in CEOs as Kevin Rollins exited and wunderkind Michael Dell stepped back in. Perhaps, Lenovo should bring back whoitwhatzzit? The fact is Lenovo doesn't have an icon like Michael Dell and really hasn't since Don Estridge, the father of the IBM PC. And that's going back a quarter century!

Although a long time IBMer, Estridge didn't fit the rigid IBM mold of the era and as initial PC sales skyrocketed, the big iron boys in Armonk viewed him as a threat and kicked him upstairs. He died tragically in a jetliner crash in Dallas on Aug. 2, 1985. And you know what? Don Estridge could have built a better battery.