Fun Loving Criminals torpedo Dell factory

Dell shut down European PC assembly lines at its Limerick, Ireland plant for four days, following a little, local trouble with the FunLove virus. The company checked out 12,000 machines, including 500 PCs that had already gone out to customers - and they were all free of the fairly innocuous virus (it posts the message Fun Loving Criminal on your screen). Oh well, better safe than sorry. But who pressed the panic button? Perhaps it was a Dell customer: Corporate Ireland has witnessed several FunLove outbreaks recently. The finger could have pointed back to Dell. Dell is working round the clock to make- up for lost time. Hurrah, overtime for all and in the run up to Christmas, too. The FunLove product recall and four days down-time will translate into two days lost production, according to Dell. We'll have to wait for the next set of results to find how much that translates into dollars and cents. ®