The IBM / Lenovo thing...

[dpaanlka]

What exactly is the story here? Why do so many products at Lenovo still say IBM on them, and still have traditional IBM industrial design? Does IBM have any advisory role or anything? Can I buy Lenovos and expect IBM quality?

 

[imacintel]

What exactly is the story here? Why do so many products at Lenovo still say IBM on them, and still have traditional IBM industrial design? Does IBM have any advisory role or anything? Can I buy Lenovos and expect IBM quality?

Pretty much. Lenovo is pretty much the regular computers division of IBM. IBM does PowerPC, and the servers and stuff like that. Kind of like sun.

 

[Sesshi]

Everything on the Lenovo side is now controlled by Lenovo. Design, QC, etc. However a whole bunch of IBM guys did go over to Lenovo so essentially nothing major has changed. They have the rights to use the IBM name as far as PC's are concerned - I'm not sure when the agreement runs out, if ever. I would imagine that Lenovo would want to ditch it as soon as they feel that their brand is strong enough worldwide but for now it would be business suicide for Lenovo to suddenly throw off the IBM name and its association to the Thinkpads.