Dell, which cant seem to avoid ad slogans that substitute its name for hell, has recently found itself confronted with the apt inadvertence of its laptops bursting into flame. Facing such a deleterious constraint on the eagerness of consumers to buy the explosive creations, the company has agreed to recall 4.1 million of its incendiary notebooks.

The culprit, as youve no doubt read, is lithium-ion batteries, which can overheat more than defective casings can withstand.

Since no things Dell are really Dell, except the logo it sticks on its products, we find the cause of the explosive surprises being attributed to a manufacturing defect at Sony, which makes the batteries for Dell.

The embarrassing occasion for Dell proves a boon to Hewlett-Packard, which for ages has railed that Dell invents nothing while it invests enormously in research and product design.

Now, while Dell, along with other notebook wholesalers like Lenovo and, surprisingly, Apple, are expressing their worrisome wonderings about their own batteries, Hewlett has been able to come out smugly and say it has no concern at all about its own batteries, because theyre designed especially for HP notebooks.

While we do not learn who actually makes Hewletts, we do note that being involved in the technology of the items youre selling certainly seems to have some advantages over simply hustling products without anymore reassurance than buying the innards from various suppliers who promise to be reliable.