Spokesman Rick Clancy said the companies had conversations in October 2005 and again in February 2006. Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat.

As a result of those conversations, Sony made changes to its manufacturing process to minimize the presence and size of the particles in its batteries. However, the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous, Clancy said.

"We didn't have confirmation of incidents [involving fires] until relatively recently. We received reports, but didn't know if there were environmental situations not related to the systems themselves," he said. "Different measures were taken in February and in October [2005] to further ensure that there were as few of these particles as possible and that they were as small as possible."

On Tuesday, Dell and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced they would recall 4.1 million Dell laptop battery packs (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/14/HNdellbatteryrecall_1.html), citing a fire hazard. The recall covers Dell-branded battery packs that use certain Sony Li-ion battery cells sold through July, 2006. Those batteries were manufactured prior to changes made in February, Clancy said.

Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden declined to comment on the conversations with Sony in October and February, but told InfoWorld that Dell was "confident that the manufacturing process at Sony has been changed to address this issue. Now our focus is erring on the side of caution to ensure no more incidents occur."