After announcing last week that it would participate in Sony’s global battery replacement program for notebook batteries, Japan’s Fujitsu announced today that was recalling 287,000 Sony-made made batteries used in the company’s notebook computers. Combined with recalls from Dell, Apple, Toshiba, and Lenovo, the number of recalled Sony-made notebook batteries has climbed to over 7.5 million.
The batter recall is another blow to electronics giant Sony, which has suffered a series of technical and public relations blows this year, including repeated delays on its forthcoming Playstation 3 gaming console, a format war between Sony-backed Blu-Ray and HD DVD next-generation DVD disks, a legal and privacy furor over copy protection software clandestinely included in Sony BMG music CDs. Sony’s share price has declined more than 10 percent since the laptop battery problem emerged in August 2006.
