Slashdot Mirror
IBM In Talks To Sell x86 Server Business To Lenovo
FrankPoole writes "According to CRN, IBM is in serious negotiations to sell its low-end x86 server business to Lenovo, which is looking to grow its server revenue. If the deal goes though, it will be the second time in eight years that Big Blue has exited a major hardware business and sold the operation to Lenovo. IBM sold its PC business to Chinese computer maker in 2005."
That's it, boys! Sell all that you own to the Chinese so you might have another decade of living the high life while doing nothing to earn it.
All that Western civilisation collectively worked on in the past 200 or so years has been given away to the Chinese for peanuts so we can sit on our collective asses and do nothing for about 20-30 years. Do you think that China will be paying us royalties once they figure out how to make a Core i7 processor themselves? F**k no, experience should tell you better.
One man's trash is another man's treasure. Selling off PC group was a huge win for both companies. IBM shed a low margin business, margins that were so low investing the money the put into PC group into t-bills would have yielded more profit. Lenovo had a leaner operating structure and different business options being a Chinese company that would let them run higher margin and they've made more then enough profit to pay off the acquisition several times over. IBM also got a nice revenue stream from licensing IP to Lenovo as well as the services for running Lenovo's first line support as well as coordinating their break fix.
I asked some PMs from Intel who they thought the next big competition was and everyone thought Samsung had all the tech and talent to turn into a major adversary over the next couple years.