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US Government May Not Approve Sale of IBM PC Unit

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-at-any-price dept.

andy1307 writes "Xinhua, among others, quotes a Bloomberg report saying the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, or CFIUS, might block the sale of IBM's PC unit to Lenovo over national security concerns. CFIUS is made up of 11 U.S. agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and is chaired by the Treasury Department. They are concerned Lenovo employees might be used to conduct industrial espionage. The Bloomberg story said members of CFIUS were focusing their attention on an IBM facility in North Carolina of the United States. The same article says IBM hasn't produced its own PCs for several years and that the bulk of its production is done by manufacturing partners, largely in China. In the past, CFIUS has blocked the sale of Global crossing to Hutchison Whampoa because it would have meant Chinese control of the undersea cable communication network."

55 of 358 comments (clear)

  1. Business ought to be left alone by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is very little good that come out of government meddling in the affairs of private companies when no one is being harmed. IBM wants to sell, Lenovo wants to buy. No harm, no foul.

    The Chinese are not the Red Menace they are made out to be. If anything, they are about as far from Red as you can get. More a yellowish-tan... But they are capitalists through and through.

    It's funny, the land of freedom and capitalism is taking steps that would make a communist plutocracy proud.

    1. Re:Business ought to be left alone by vladd_rom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >> IBM wants to sell, Lenovo wants to buy. No harm, no foul.

      There is no connection between the first sentence and the second. In order to determine if there is any harm or not, a lot of factors need to be considered, mainly related to whether or not a company will increase what economists call "market power" and will get closer to a monopol status.

      >> It's funny, the land of freedom and capitalism is taking steps that would make a communist plutocracy proud.

      There is such a term in economy called "market power", which describes companies that have key resources and strategic positions on the market. In those cases, the "invisible hand" of offer and demand, that balances prices on the market, no longer works, because a firm is clearly advantaged compared to the others and in a position to get a monopoly status (Does Microsoft ring any bells? :) ). In those cases, the government is expected and does regulate economic activity in order to re-balance the market.

      I'm not saying that this is the case here; however, simply adjusting the balance doesn't mark this approach as communist. Depending on your position on the political spectrum, you might find this implication of government into the market more or less suitable. Still, no matter that, it is still far away from communist.

    2. Re:Business ought to be left alone by B747SP · · Score: 2, Insightful
      There is very little good that come out of government meddling in the affairs of private companies when no one is being harmed

      You're exactly right, when no-one is being harmed! There's a very good reason for the gummint to meddle in this affair though: national security. You guys (ie: America) have a lot of tight restrictions on export of technology to try to keep a lid on The Bad Guys(tm) advancing their technology too quickly and becoming more of a military threat than they might otherwise be.

      Now I'll admit that it only takes a bit of industrial espionage to take the lid off a lot of secrets, but that doesn't mean you should hand the blueprints for everything over, no questions asked.

      I, for one, would be a damn sight happier if y'all would stop pissing about with nail files in carry-on luggage and concentrate on stuff, like this, that actuallymatters.

      --
      I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
    3. Re:Business ought to be left alone by AvidLinuxUser · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Oh, they (government) really stopped Microsoft.

      More likly Microsoft reads slashdot too and is worry about IBM having more power in the linux market in China so Bill called his friends in the White house and Justice department.

    4. Re:Business ought to be left alone by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nah, the Chinese didn't grease the right people. These big government deals are all about graft, and who gets it. In the Jiang Zemin/Clinton era, times were happy...the Chinese paid, and the U.S. responded with whatever they wanted...satellite technology, nuclear secrets, influence in elections. However, the new administration of Hu Jintao evidently forgot to pay off the right people, and now the whole deal is in jeopardy. Play ball, people!

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:Business ought to be left alone by eclectro · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Chinese are not the Red Menace they are made out to be.

      Yes, until they decide to get mad at Taiwan and invade. And because they now have many of our tech resources and capabilities, they could slap us down one way or another if we decide to take the wrong side. Like saying they won't hold anymore of our debt, which could lead to our dollar spiraling downward and worth less than a peso.

      Not to mention all of the human rights issues that China has (or lack thereof more specifically). They should never have gotten Most Favored Nation (MFN) status because of this.

      Make no mistake, the Red Menace could prove to be alive and well someday.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    6. Re:Business ought to be left alone by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      well, usa has been the only country getting mad at others and invade in the last years.

      --
      Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
    7. Re:Business ought to be left alone by mark · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Human Rights record?? Can you say "guantanamo bay"?

      I didn't think so.

      Of course, at least the people held in guantanamo bay - against their will and without any legal proof of wrongdoing - are still alive. Unlike the (conservative, peer-reviewed estimate of) 100,000 dead people caused directly by the invasion of iraq - the vast majority of whom had done nothing wrong.

      You Americans and your blatant hypocrisy make me want to puke.

      The biggest menace in the world at the moment is not just red; it's red, white and blue.

    8. Re:Business ought to be left alone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Grrrrr, I really hope you're trolling but I'll bite.

      The moderators must be smoking crack - insightful indeed? Closer to the mark is insanly paranoid and raving mad about a insubstantial red menace... Oh, your from the USA, I guess that's been drilled into you from birth so you can be excused a little. Fortunatley many Americans are able to draw their own conclusions rather than spouting the nonesense they've been force fed - take a look some of them post on slashdot.

      When the USA instigates illegal foreign wars of occupation isn't it YOUR govenrment that needs to be slapped down?

      Human rights? So the USA has such a good history of this, signed up to the Geneva convention - oh, what's that it's not - and infact in contravention of it in practice in many places - Guantanimo is an illegal ethical and moral disgrace for example, let alone what's been going on in Abu Grade and other places where it seems there is/was an institutionalised systematic policy of abuse.

      How about this for a chiller - the USA tops the world for child prostitution. Yup, nice wholesome christians that you are, is Bush going to try and impose those values on the rest of the world too - along with his current agenda of promoting short term greed over protecting the environment for future generations?

      Why is it also that the USA effectivley has more votes in institutions like the WTO and the IMF than everyone else put together. Is it right that the richest people in the world get to dictate global finances, which they always do in their favour. I thought the WTO and IMF were there to help developing nations, not as a way for the USA/G8 to rip them off. This is an example of that - "You must accept our free market conditions on your own economies, but we'll do whatever we like".

      The reason that the dollar is spiraling downward has nothing to do with the rest of the world or China (which infact is still helping to prop up the dollar through trade - probably why they've got MFN, you can trade with them and profit lots from the cheapness of those human rights abuses), the fault lies entirley with the USA administration. It's the one that's running your economy down the toilet, but then Bush's out of office in another 4 years so he's squeezing for every last drop he and his friends can make. Perhaps you should sort out your trade deficit and borrowning so you wouldn't have to foist debt off onto developing nations by selling them your currency.

      The other reasons the dollar is dying is simple, there is now a sensible alternative, the Euro and so people have a choice - good it's a free market :-)

      The USA isn't well liked in the world because of it's terrible foreign policies and as the USA has used the dollar as a way to impose unfair trading and debts on other countries is it any wonder that places are now sending them back and saying no thanks, we'll give the Euro a go. Isn't that what Iraq did shortly before being invaded. Other places that did that - Iran and North Korea - where is top of the impending invasion list? So what do you have to do to be a member of the axis of evil? That's also why the USA administration hates the French so much - it's been mostly their diplomacy that affected these changes to monatary policy.

      I could go on and on and on but you get the picture - wake up, stop looking at the world thru Bush tinted goggles and take an objective view and I think you'd be suprised at what is really going on in the world.

      Make no mistake, the Stars and Stripes meanace is alive and well today and something needs to be done ASAP.

    9. Re:Business ought to be left alone by gunnk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have a ThinkPad T41 on my desk right now. I flipped it over and found:

      "Made in China"

      Whether or not IBM sells its PC business to Lenovo, the technical information is already in China as is the actual manufacturing. So if our "national security" concerns are about the transfer of technical knowledge then it's too little-too late. If the concern is about having our important technology manufactured by a potential adversary, then it is also too little-too late.

      This looks more like meddling for the sake of flag-waving to me...

      --
      Life is short: void the warranty.
    10. Re:Business ought to be left alone by miu · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Mothers of 5 year olds know the correct answer to this: "you ignore the civil rights abuses of those other countries and work on your own".

      It really irritates me when people try to pretend like the Chinese, Libyans, Syrians, etc are suddenly beyond reproach because the US has committed some actions like theirs.

      So yes, the US has human rights violations and yes, the US has invaded a sovereign nation for a lie. But that does not remove the stain of such actions on any other nation that has committed them. The recent actions of the US do not change the fact that China has a recent history of civil rights abuses and unjust wars.

      When all is said and done there remain pragmatic reasons for the US to distrust China. No "yellow peril/red menace", just a nascent world power with massive natural resources, a highly regimented social order, anger over victimization during colonialism, and a population that is 1/6 the entire world.

      --

      [Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
    11. Re:Business ought to be left alone by miu · · Score: 2, Interesting
      My post intentionaly ignores moral authority, hypocrisiy, and the US telling other nations what to do.

      The point of my post is that every time *anyone* (even some random Joe on slashdot) criticizes China as dangerous someone rushes in and says "the US is more dangerous". I'm saying that the tactic is misleading, the point irrelevant. The "morality" of the US has *nothing* to do with the "morality" of China.

      --

      [Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
    12. Re:Business ought to be left alone by nounderscores · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The point is that you have at least two known psychopaths with shotguns in a room full of other people of dubious morality. The room is getting rapidly hotter and you are running out of food. There was an escape stairwell, but it's dangerous, broken and expensive to fix.

      You are one of those two shotgun toting psychopaths. You've already shot at least one person to prove a point (but nobody liked that guy anyway) and your colleague has done likewise a few times as well. People in the room are very worried about you.

      Do you:

      a) Become repentant of your sins and mend your ways and then tell the other psycho to do likewise?

      b) Blow the guy's head off, before he shoots you or somebody you like?

      c) Talk to him quietly while waving your gun around to stop other people in the room getting ideas? I mean, if the two of you team up you could eat all the other people in the room and not go hungry, right? Yeah, let's eat them.

      I know that this view of the world is really screwed up, but if you look at world events, I think that this is the world that our leaders see.

    13. Re:Business ought to be left alone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I didn't say what other nations are doing is right, I simply pointed out that the USA has no moral highground from which to preach or impose policy and that it should really get it's own act in order before meddling with others affairs.

      I happen to hail from England - I have many of the same criticisms of our our own government and policies. I could go on about how we invented concentration camps (in north africa IIRC) and we were also the first to use chemical weapons on the prople of the middle east - I think under Churchill. We also engaged in an illegal immoral foreign war although with less fervour than the USA and some of our own troops abuses in Iraq are currently coming to light - through courtmatrials and legal procedings that we are obliged to carry out in order to honour the geneva convention I may add.

      Chinaman Square? Do you mean the Tiananmen protests in 1989? If you can't spell it put any old phonetic spelling into Google and it'll help :-)

      Freakin heathen commies, you make me sick.

      I'm not a commie but my political views are rather left of the norm for the USA (in many respects right of the norm for the EU though). In some ways I'd describe myself as a capitalist humanitarian libetarian - although those views often conflict :-(

      I am however a proud heathen (to virtually any organised religion) as my views are agnostic.

      As for your sickness, I don't think that's got much to do with me, more with your own difficulty in accepting a world view that isn't consistant with your own and challenges some of your preconceptions.

      I would like to add that my political views are entirley my own, formed through research, debate and observation and are also open to change through an open, honest informed debate - can you step up to the challenge?

    14. Re:Business ought to be left alone by Tyrdium · · Score: 2, Insightful
      *cough*

      Speaking as an American... Many of us hold the same opinion as the rest of the world. We don't all approve of the war in Iraq. We don't all approve of Bush. Hell, a lot of us are absolutely disgusted with what's going on. Unfortunately, it's not like we can do much. Protest? Those don't do much. Rebellion? Yeah, that'll work... We're not all hypocritical; just some of us.

    15. Re:Business ought to be left alone by ThousandStars · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Comparing something like Guantanamo Bay, where foreign non-soldiers (for lack of a better term) are held, with China, where the government wields absolute, arbitrary power over every citizen, is simply wrong. The biggest menace in the world at the moment is red and dwells in the East. It already invaded and swallowed Tibet, fought several border wars with India and continues to threaten Taiwan. Contrast that with the U.S., which did invade Iraq (an act I'm not going to justify because it was probably a mistake), but would like nothing better than the Iraqis to govern themselves -- so we can leave.

      Obviously, I'm not going to argue that the U.S. is the pinnacle of morality, because it isn't. America's human rights record is vastly better than China's, and they're not even in the same league.

      If you want to discuss real oppression, talk to someone like Harry Wu, a Chinese-American man who I've heard speak. He was forced into the lau-gai, which were slave labor camps operated by the Chinese that still exist today. Or talk to members of Falun-Gong. China's government is much, much worse in terms of human rights violations than America'a.

    16. Re:Business ought to be left alone by twiddlingbits · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Which China? Goods made in Taiwan can also carry that label. It's an important distinction. I know of one large international company that was having its' laptops preloaded with software in China, and when those laptops were to be used by the group of the company that did Government business they had to completely re-image them just in case there were some Trojans planted. A LOT of large Chinese corporations have Government insiders in the management of the company, and they siphon off things they think are useful to advance the State. China on one hand is a very modern, (mostly)Free Market economy, but the Government is still FIRMLY in control. Do not for one instance think the people have any real rights. I don't know the details of Lenovo, but to have gotten as big as they are in the timeframe (less than 20 yrs) they had to have some help from the Government. I suspect the Gov't concerns are not the laptops themselves but things like the chip technologies that go INTO the laptops. I guess they could let the sale proceed but restrict Intel/AMD and others from selling the chips...

    17. Re:Business ought to be left alone by AstroDrabb · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Who modded this Insightful?

      No offense, but there is nothing Insightful about this post. Exactly what "great knowledge" would China gain by buying this PC division?

      These are basic PC's! There are no great government technologies hidden in the IBM PC division.

      You're exactly right, when no-one is being harmed!
      Oh, please. How is China harming the USA? Should we as Americans turn into nothing but fighters that try to destroy anyone that competes against us?

      I am a former U.S. Marine I served during the Gulf War. I am so tired of the typical American response to fight or kill any opponent. I hope that we (the USA) can wake up on day and actually work within the world.

      What I fear as a former U.S. Maine is that one day the world will get tired of the US pushing them around. We (the USA) are are one bad-assed nation, however if the world tried to take us on, they would kick our @sses.

      I have a very novel idea for the USA government. Why don't we try to work with the rest of the world, especially Europe, instead of always trying to fight them?

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    18. Re:Business ought to be left alone by bacon55 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's like a little fly buzzing around...buzz...buzz...

      Nations do not function as moral individuals.

      There has not been a powerful nation in HISTORY that abides by your perverse view of pragmatic statecraft. Nations represent tribes, seperate, and competing. Only until VERY recently has this concept of soft hearted foreign policy been entertained.

      It is not the responsibility of an individual nation state to ensure the well being of other nations or their citizens. However, it may well be in their best interests. If you think that standing up for utopian ideals is a legitimate interest for a nation to exercise, please elaborate. Until that time, I cannot see how the practice of giving competing nations an advantage is going to benefit the citizens of the United States, or ANY nation that chooses to do so.

      Pragmatism and greed are what drives the machinations of the world, there is no room for idealistic humanism when the future of the nation is on the line. That's not to say there are practical limits, but it is still entirely a matter of cost vs benefit. Obviously another holocaust is not beneficial to anyone, including the antagonist nation.

      Look at history for your sample. Speak of a time where nations, empires, or kingdoms ever practiced statecraft according to your standards. It has not happened, nor will it ever happen so long as we are divided into seperate economic and political entities. If you bring up unificiation as the answer to this problem, you'd be wrong. Environmental, cultural, and economic diversity prohibits a unified political system. Economic concerns above all eliminate this possibility, as currency would no longer be useful as a tool for adapting an economy to a particular market.

  2. So it begins by scapermoya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The last-ditch efforts of a superpower that will hate being #2 when when China gets its act together in the next generation or two.

    --
    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
  3. Laissez-Faire? by JulianOolian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought the US were supposed to be the laissez-faire free marketeers of the world?

    If China was blocking US participation in their markets on these grounds, I've little doubt the US would be taking the matter to the WTO (and winning).

    1. Re:Laissez-Faire? by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      China does this type of stuff to US products in China all the time. They have a ton of "non-tarriff" barriers. The reason the US has yet to make a major challenge to them in the WTO is that:
      a. They are good at buying politicians(*Cough* Clinton *cough*) and
      b. They are a major(if not the foremost) consumer of American debt. Dubya can't run his tax cut and spend government without them, so the US doesn't really make any challenges to them in the WTO.

      --
      Monstar L
    2. Re:Laissez-Faire? by flabbergast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I doubt BMW really learned much from Land Rover. The engine in the Range Rover is still a BMW derivative. BMW got something very good out of the very bad Rover deal: Mini.

      You make a good point about it being market driven, but the way China currently treats IP, Western corporations won't be around long after Chinese knock offs have driven them out of the market.

  4. We will see what China has to say about this by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    China can always threaten to stop buying up US debt. That would mean a large spike in interest rates in order to make buying US debt more attractive to investors. It would probably also mean a tax hike, something that Dubya would like to avoid at all costs.
    Cheney may have said that deficits don't matter, but sooner or later, he will learn that giving the largest dictatorship on Earth a large voice in your government is a bad idea. (Esp. when you are supposed to be promoting "freedom" and "democracy")

    --
    Monstar L
    1. Re:We will see what China has to say about this by andy1307 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It would probably also mean a tax hike, something that Dubya would like to avoid at all costs.

      Wouldn't it be something that the Chinese would like to avoid at all costs..a tax hike for the largest consumer market for their products will be like a tariff on their exports.

    2. Re:We will see what China has to say about this by 2Bits · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, if I were the head of China's government, I would do nothing, and let the market settle it. And I would keep buying US debt, until I own more than 50% of the US debt, and I would be able to do more remote control of the US government (or at least, influence it to my favor).

      Could this scenario happen? It could, if the government officials keep the country running like this for a while, and do not screw it with political unstability, and we would be able to see some new rules set by China. I'm not saying it's good or bad (although I do hope this would happen very soon), but that'll be interesting to see.

      Whether the US like it or not, China is going to play the rules in the US's court now. Although the chinese companies are still very small, compared to the american/european/japanese ones, but we had seen this kind of situations change in about 10-15 years time. So, when the chinese companies grow big enough, they'll look to acquire some oversea asset (for any purpose, even just for diversification).

      Whether you like it or not, this is capitalism. I'm crossing my fingers.

    3. Re:We will see what China has to say about this by makomk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Anyways, if these doomsday prediction of China gaining control over the US by owning enough of its debt ever came to pass, the US always has one major trump card, we can at any time invalidate all those US treasury bonds and they become nothing more than scraps of paper.

      Yes, but the US government could probably say goodbye to being able to borrow money for a long while. Do you think that anyone would trust their finanical promises after an action like that?

    4. Re:We will see what China has to say about this by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful
      debt is not equity, it does not give you any control per se, although having a large part of someone's debt obviously makes them listen to you ;)
      Agreed on the debt != equity point but there's an old saying: If you owe the bank fifty thousand dollars, you've got a problem. If you owe the bank fifty million, the bank has a problem.

      The US could devalue (could?!?) its currency, effectively shrinking the value of those IOUs (I mean bonds). In an extreme case, it could simply not pay and tell them to sod off; Russia and Argentina have done this before and got away with it.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  5. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by shanen · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Well, you obviously have something against IBM, but your "facts" are totally bogus. The lack of evidential links is obvious enough.

    IBM support is not going anywhere. It's profitable and has a very high reputation. The main concern on the IBM side is whether or not Lenovo will stay with IBM after the transition period.

    Dell does not sell IBM ThinkPad computers. The only thing I can imagine you are talking about is some kind of really screwy deal where Dell salesmen are playing some kind of marketing middleman game. Of course, in that case, I can quite well understand why it would be in Dell's interest to foul things up as long they thought they could blame it on someone else. That would also explain the rolling heads, come to think of it.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  6. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by af_robot · · Score: 2

    For your information:
    IBM DO NOT repair its PC's - all service duties lays on IBM business partners. If your company wants to get IBM business partner status to sell IBM's PC/Servers then your should have your own service center.
    IBM only provides service centers with spare parts and repair informations/trainings.
    All currently produced IBM PCs will be repaired in IBM Business Partnes service centers for a long time - IBM currenty offering service pack for 3+ years.
    Btw: How many "laptop problems" did you have with ThinkPads?!

  7. Why IBM need to sell by Ev0lution · · Score: 4, Informative
    Bad news for IBM if it's blocked, because if you look at the full year report* it's clear why they're so keen to get rid of it.

    Personal Systems Group made $162 million off turnover of nearly $13 billion, that's a 1.2% margin. Software group made $4.5 billion from a $15 billion turnover. Hell, WebSphere MQ Series made several times the profit of the whole PC business, and that's a team of maybe 200 people. CICS made even more. From IBM's point of view, Personal Systems Group isn't worth the effort or the risk.

    *http://www.ibm.com/investor/financials/quarterly/ 4q04earnings.phtml

  8. When did this happen? by g0hare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Computers are all made in China anyway! We don't build cars in America, we don't grow food in America, we don't even do tech support in America, we don't make steel in America, we don't make clothes in America and we're busy moving all our jobs that pay well overseas! When exactly did this kind of behavior become a "national security problem?" instead of good business? I mean I know all those people who used to make textiles in the South all just went right out and got themselves a degree after the mills closed - what, you say they weren't smart enough to do that?

    Then WHAT THE HELL is left for them to do when all those jobs are gone except cook meth in their trailers? Or become religious terrorists?

    --
    Vote Quimby!
  9. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by B747SP · · Score: 4, Informative
    The real story is that the government has millions of IBMs bought in the past two years that are now just so much scrap due to lack of support.

    With respect, those millions of IBM PCs were scrap the moment they left the factory.

    Every time I say something bad about IBM PCs on slashdot, an IBM employee with mod points mods me down as a Troll. I don't understand why, but hey, I'll try again...

    I'm responsible for a fleet of around 100 personal computers - some desktops, most laptops. In years past, there was a corporate rule that said "Must Buy IBM" (they gave us a 'free' teaching lab worth of computers, we sold out, something, something)... So a significant magority of that fleet of computers are IBM PCs. P3-500, P3-650 and early P4 desktops, and a lot of 600E, 600X, and T21 laptops.

    All of the IBM equipment, without exception, has failed at three years of age, plus or minus two months. The desktops have two failure modes: either the power supply just dies, or the brittle plastic bracket that holds the power switch inside the case breaks and falls off. You can generally jury-rig a solution for the brittle plastic, but the power supplys are made from unobtanium - exactly the physical opposite of an otherwise identical power supply that Gateway and many others used - and so you simply can't replace a power supply short of paying IBM prices for spares.

    The 600 series stinkpads have a single failure mode: The battery charging circuit fails at precisely three years of age. If that damned blinking orange "I'm not working" light doesn't drive you mad, the fact that your laptop is now a desktop will!

    The T21 laptops have two failure modes: either someone farts in the general direction of the grossly under-engineered screens and they either break, or just go a terrible pink colour, -or- the mini-PCI slot fails, and you lose modem and ethernet. Motherboard replacement.

    Now these failures aren't one or two machines. These are all machines. They all fail that way.

    Now you can't tell me that these failures aren't in the product by design.

    By comparison, I have old P1, P2, and P3 gateway and Dell machines lying around everywhere, and those damn things just won't die!!!! I still have one old P1-60 gateway box with about 120Mb RAM in it running FreeBSD, MySQL, Apache and stuff, and with an uptime of about 2 years. It won't go away!!!

    Nah man, this IBM stuff... it has the technical potential to be good stuff, but whilever they keep designing that shit to fail at three years of age, I'll not ever buy it.

    --
    I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
  10. This is like by cyberkahn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    sticking your finger in the leaking dike or singling out a grain of sand from the beach. It's already too late. We have exported a majority of our technology to China already, which of course is being copied, therefore, saving China billions in R and D. America's greed has sold itself out.

    Before you flame me, yes, I am a patriotic American, however, I am not blind to what is happening. America is going down the path of Rome. Just give us more bread and circuses. Football is more important than academics. Money is more important than ethics.

  11. Security concerns over a commodity? by hussar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Computers, at least at the PC level, are a commodity good that are produced with very narrow cost to sales price margins. This makes them very similar to toasters, coffemakers, small refrigerators, etc. IBM wants to sell its PC unit because it can no longer compete or doesn't want to continue expending the energy and resources it takes to compete. This competition arises from the fact that there are any number of other producers in the market turning out computers which are almost indistiguishable from the ones IBM is producing. Some of these other producers are in China. So, it appears that this ruling would stop IBM from selling to a Chinese firm a capabilty other Chinese firms already possess and which is causing the market pressures that pushed IBM to consider the sale in first place.

    Where in all of that is a national security concern?

    --

    Bureaucracy loves company.
  12. Topic rang an ancient bell... by shanen · · Score: 5, Funny

    [One of the key figures is already missing...]

    George B.: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
    Condie R.: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
    George B.: Great. Lay it on me.
    Condie R.: Hu is the new leader of China.
    George B.: That's what I want to know.
    Condie R.: That's what I'm telling you.
    George B.: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
    Condie R.: Yes.
    George B.: I mean the fellow's name.
    Condie R.: Hu.
    George B.: The guy in China.
    Condie R.: Hu.
    George B.: The new leader of China.
    Condie R.: Hu.
    George B.: The Chinaman!
    Condie R.: Hu is leading China.
    George B.: Now whaddya' asking me for?
    Condie R.: I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. Hu is leading China.
    George B.: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
    Condie R.: That's the man's name.
    George B.: That's who's name?
    Condie R.: Yes.
    George B.: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
    Condie R.: Yes, sir.
    George B.: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
    Condie R.: That's right.
    George B.: But Yassir's a leftie. Then who is in China?
    Condie R.: Yes, sir.
    George B.: Yassir is in China?
    Condie R.: No, sir.
    George B.: Then who is?
    Condie R.: Yes, sir.
    George B.: Yassir?
    Condie R.: No, sir.
    George B.: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
    Condie R.: Kofi?
    George B.: No, thanks.
    Condie R.: You want Kofi?
    George B.: No.
    Condie R.: You don't want Kofi.
    George B.: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
    Condie R.: Yes, sir.
    George B.: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
    Condie R.: Kofi?
    George B.: Milk! Will you please make the call?
    Condie R.: And call who?
    George B.: Who is the guy at the U.N?
    Condie R.: Hu is the guy in China.
    George B.: Will you stay out of China?!
    Condie R.: Yes, sir.
    George B.: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
    Condie R.: Kofi.
    George B.: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
    Condie R. (into phone): Rice, here.
    George B.: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East.

    [With apologies to Abbott and Costello--"Who's on First?"]

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  13. Re:Copyright Laws by Bobvanvliet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And getting affordable products with IBM quality (that were always produced over there anyway) from an increasingly capitalist country is a bad thing how exactly?

  14. Totally by t_allardyce · · Score: 4, Funny

    Frankly im outraged, I think everyone here needs to write to their congressman or something. Also I have absolutely no idea what the story is about, thats the most confusing paragraph ive ever read. IBM PC's are national secuirty risks? Blocking sales? Something about communist China? I wish the government was this concerned with oil company ownership.

    --
    This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
  15. The part I didn't get by andy1307 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    They are concerned Lenovo employees might be used to conduct industrial espionage.

    Are they worried about Lenovo employees(presumably Chinese) spying on the companies they sell laptops too? for e.g., if a laptop from a defense contractor is sent to a Lenovo facility for servicing, are they afraid the Lenovo employees might get some information they shouldn't be getting? Aren't IBM laptops serviced by third parties anyway? Where exactly is the potential for industrial espionage?

  16. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by af_robot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now these failures aren't one or two machines. These are all machines. They all fail that way.

    Well, I don't believe you. We have an IBM service center in our company I can judge personally how many failures were caused by IBM's "bad design".
    IBM PCs had only ONE critical problem - leaking capacitors on desktop motherboards, but it is not IBM fault - many vendors also had that problem.

    btw: In some cases IBM service centers can repair your failed PC's under ECA even if it is out of a warranty. Leaked capacitors usually fixed under ECA.

  17. Gee, can't even come up with a decent reason by 2Bits · · Score: 2, Funny

    I mean, all these smart people in all those 11 agencies, and still couldn't come up with a decent reason to block the deal?

    If I were to do industrial espionage, why would I buy a PC unit? There's not much research in that. I'd go for the chip unit, the mainframe unit, or something. PC unit for espionage? Give me a fucking break. It's just assembly line, mostly, for whatever sake!

  18. #2? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hardly #2, but the USA is nevertheless waking up to the fact that China is catching up technologically at a much faster rate than anybody had expected. Soon enough the Chinese will have reached a point where they can threaten the USA militarily using Chinese developed technology based on technological transfer from Russia, W-Europe and the USA it self. Greedy corporations outourced work to China and with they exported the technology China needed to develop better and better military hardware. This sort of a panic reaction is simply a belated reckonition of this development. Expect the Chinese to field Submarines, Tanks and a Stealth aircraft capable of competing with the F-35 within the next 20 years or so and its surface fleet will become a serious challenge to the USN in the Pacific.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
    1. Re:#2? by scapermoya · · Score: 2, Informative

      China isn't gunning for our spot as the military superpower, they are gunning for our spot as the economic one. They have 1.3 billion people, with the right organization their GNP will outstrip that of the US in the next 50-75 years, easily.

      --
      Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
  19. I can turn $13b into $16b easy!!! by cheekyboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They could have put $13billion into Euros 12 months ago, with the dollar dropping 20% they could have made a hell lot more, but its more fun to run a company than watch a spread sheet.

    But what else is IBM going to do with $13b? Make an OLED factory? they already have access to large amounts of cash, its not like they CANT FIND $13b, they can.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  20. Uh..lots by Renegrade · · Score: 2, Informative

    > Btw: How many "laptop problems" did you have with ThinkPads?!

    Oh, I dunno.. it destroyed $300 batteries regularly, it had too many IRQs for all devices to be enabled at once, it had this ugly little cli--er, eraser thingy in the middle of the keyboard which was useless and required adjustment every few days, the BIOS setup looked like some 1983 CGA game for retarded five year olds, and was about as useful, it was twice the size and half the power as the equivalent Toshiba model of the time... Oh yah, and the drivers which when downloaded, had to be extracted onto a _floppy_ disk.

    IBM Thinkpad 600E U2426. All the crap you never wanted, and then some. (Oh yah, the model number is obtuse and there are a trillion useless variants to this useless heap of garbage)

    I should have bought that Compaq instead. It was the same price, and still runs to this day.

    Oh well. At least IBM still offers downloads on legacy products like that, even if they are really stupid to install and highly broken.

    The 'highly broken' part is a universal standard for the PC industry anyways though, which IBM created with that crappy machine they threw together in a drunken binge on a weekend in 1981 -- Unsharable interrupts? Static OS structures? Segmented, 20-bit memory? Processor-driven I/O? How could you do this with a motto of "Think"?? Or maybe that's a typo, maybe it's.. DRINK??

    Remember kids, alcohol, like smoking, is _not cool_.

  21. National Security Advisor failures? by ka9dgx · · Score: 2, Funny
    We get all picky about who owns the undersea cables, but don't give a shit about who controls the systems that allow remote unaudited phone taps... typical, just fucking typical.

    There was a company that made rare-earth magnets in Valparaiso, Indiana. (Necessary for small strong servos in, oh... missles...) That got sold to China...

    inconsistent, arbitrary law enforcement breeds contempt.

    If we had a compentent National Security Council, none of this would have happened, nor would it have been allowed to be politicized.

    --Mike--

  22. I read the statements and... by 9mind · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Wonder if this is the same slashdot crowd that

    A) Talks about China censorship in relation to Google
    B) Doesn't think that the government may have another reason besides the obvious clap-trap for blocking the sale

    With everything going on in the news, does anyone believe they would block the sale of IBM over something as trivial as industrial espionage? Many of you have pointed out the plethora of other companies that are based overseas, but yet fail to see that something else maybe behind the "rumored" blocked sale of IBM to Lenovo. Take of the blinders and take a look around.

  23. Could msft be behind this? by walterbyrd · · Score: 2, Insightful



    The move by IBM to somewhat re-invent the PC, starting in China, is msft's worst nightmare. A move like that could eventually make linux a serious contender against windows. Let's face it, right now linux has about 2% of the desktop market, and is largly ignored by major software developers like intuit, adobee, and autodesk.

    Msft is certainly not above abusing the USA legal, or political system, in order to maintain msft's market position.

  24. Long Term cost of devaluation by alexhmit01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The US has NEVER defaulted on a debt payment (post Civil War, might have during that). One of the smart things Clinton did during the government shut-down was violate all sorts of government accounting rules to get the debt payments out.

    As a result, US Debt is considered 0-risk. It is the ONLY debt instrument in the world that is considered zero risk. Even other government debt has a small implicit risk premium in it.

    Right now, the US raises money at no risk premium. If the US defaulted or increased the money supply (which would cause massive inflation and force the markets to devalue its currency... devaluation as policy requires a peg, normally to the dollar), the would cause the US to start paying a risk premium.

    All of a sudden, you would have 10%-15% inflation from oversupply of money, and the US risk premium going up to 5%, for example, and now government bonds pay 15%-20%... How much do you think that your mortgage needs to be now? 25%, 30%?

    Basically, the US CAN get out of its mess with massive printing of money, but the results would be catastrophic.

    HOWEVER, your comment about the bank is 100% on, and I believe it is the current financial strategy. Continue to buy products from China for "worthless" sheets of paper (paying 4%-4.25% interest), then slowly increase the money supply and inflation to 4.5% or 5%, and inflate your way out of the mess. All of a sudden, the money is devaluing faster than your interest payments, tax revenues go up, and debt repayment is less painful.

    Many countries played games like this, but it is normally to buy capital goods and other means of production... we've used it for consumer spending, which is why we may be in a bind.

    Mild inflation is nice, but reasonable (5%) inflation) wouldn't kill us, and might be a way out of our mess.

    Alex

    1. Re:Long Term cost of devaluation by Artemis · · Score: 2, Informative

      US debt is considered 0-risk financially because there is no risk premium paid on US debt in the international market. It's a financial term, not an English one.

      --
      mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
  25. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by Warpedcow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe all of yours fail that way, but I have a T20, an old P3-800 Netvista, and a P3-550 300PL in my office that all work fine. In fact, there are literally thousands of these old machines where I work and they all work fine.

    --
    moo
  26. Re:Hidden Agenda ? by Txiasaeia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bullshit. I had a Thinkpad 350X manufactured sometime in the early 90's that finally, *finally* died in 2002. IBM PCs are scrap as soon as they leave the factory? Yeah, I don't think so.

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
  27. Currency Speculation by sjbe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    China can always threaten to stop buying up US debt.

    And do you know what the effect of that would be on China? It's a complicated subject but one of the reasons China keeps such large currency reserves is so they can protect their currency against speculation. China has something around $500 billion in US currency right now. This large reserve helps them maintain their currency's peg to the dollar. Its more complicated than this, but essentially they are taking dollars out of circulation thus increasing demand for dollars (less supply -> price increases). This makes a dollar "worth" more, relative to the Renminbi, and makes Chinas exported goods more attractive.

    Without a large currency reserve, speculators would be tempted to bet on the currency and China could be forced to float their currency which would cause an instant recession, probably worldwide. Think speculators couldn't do this? George Soros became famous for making $1 billion in a single day by betting on the devaluation of the British pound and forcing the Bank of England to float their currency. In fact speculation is how the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis started. The Thai government had a speculation attack on their currency and were forced to float it, resulting in immediate devaluation and a region-wide financial crisis.

    It's not that easy for China to just stop buying dollars. The media tends to paint it as a one sided deal but China is just as dependant on the US, if not more so. Without the US buying all those goods, China's economy goes in the toilet.

  28. The dangerous IBM PC unit by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Funny

    IBM PC unit?

    Frankly, I don't see how a 25-year-old 8088-based computer would present much of a threat of industrial espionage.

    Well, if they added the second 5 1/4" drive and 110 baud acoustic-coupler modem, maybe.

  29. Re:MICROSOFT ought to be left alone by AstroDrabb · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I am surprised no one modded this up! This is right on the money. Do you think MS had no influence over this decision by the "government"? You can be certain that MS came along and bitched and moaned about this sale.

    It is funny though because I remember MS selling their source code to the Chinese government and then claiming during their anti-trust case that they couldn't reveal source code for "national security reasons".

    I guess it is OK for the Chinese government to have access to the MS source code, however if anyone else can see it, it would "undermine" national security.

    --
    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
    it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison