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Not Just For ThinkPads Anymore: Lenovo Gets OK To Buy IBM Server Line
IBM sold its personal computer line (including the iconic ThinkPad line) to Lenovo back in 2005. Now, Lenovo is poised to acquire IBM's line of X86-based servers, and has garnered the approval of a regulatory body which could have scotched the deal. (The article describes the server line at issue as "low end," but that's in the eye of the beholder.) From the article:
The conclusion of the review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or Cfius, is “good news for both IBM and Lenovo, and for our customers and employees,” Armonk, New York-based IBM said yesterday in a statement. While Cfius placed some conditions on the deal, they don’t significantly affect the business, and terms of the transaction didn’t change as result, a person with knowledge of the matter said, without specifying the conditions. The sale drew scrutiny because of disputes between China and the U.S., the world’s two largest economies, over cyberintrusions. By completing the deal, IBM can jettison a less profitable business to focus on growing areas, such as cloud computing and data analytics, while giving Lenovo a bigger piece of the global computing-hardware market. ... Spokesmen for IBM and Lenovo declined to comment on whether the Cfius clearance included any requirements or concessions. Holly Shulman, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which leads Cfius, declined to comment.
Lenovo laptops are the worst. They can't even get the keyboard layout right. I'm looking at you cntrl and function. Whomever thought it was a good idea to switch them around is a moron.
Thank IBM for that. You can swap them in "BIOS" BTW.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains....Thomas Jefferson
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The Apple touchpads are actually quite good, but everyone else's attempts to rip them off have been terrible and unusable...
I always used to use the nipple on thinkpads, and with other laptops i would always connect up an external mouse. When i got a macbook i actually started using the touchpad.
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Asus laptops it turns out have excellent touchpads. Even the old eee 900 had a small but otherwise very good one.
Touch pads have however always been the weakpoint of thinkpads. And battery life. But hey, you can chuck a cup of coffee over the keyboard then beat someone to death with it and it'll keep on truckin'.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
...thinks the Chinese MBA at Lenovo HQ, Beijing
Yes, I believe Slashdot's server is actually a Netbook left by CmdrTaco years ago. Who needs redundant dual-port disks with multiple controller paths, the ability to run more than 32GB RAM (with ECC), redundant power supplies, hot swappable disks, power supplies, fans and even PCI cards, centralized remote management and monitoring, motherboards built with components that actually last at least 3 years under stressful workloads and environments, 4-hour support contracts, certified hardware-software combinations so there is never any worry about compatibility, right?
If Apple can design in California and manufacture in China, and make tons of profit, why can't IBM do the same? Why does it have to sell the design part to people who are nowhere near as competent?
Corporations are government. They get their charter from government, and most of the big ones have very tight ties to government through lobbying and contracts. Corporations now do almost all of the actual work that we typically associate with government. It's a way of letting us have a ruling class while still maintaining the facade of democracy.
And I guess at the end of the day, we could always pass a law revoking corporate charters. Good luck with that, though.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
>Dell keyboards, IMHO, have always sucked - I haven't had a single one that hasn't felt 'cheap'.
You obviously never tried the Dell Latitude E-series keyboards. My ~2008-vintage Dell E6400's keyboard is just about as good as any Thinkpad I've owned (and I've had a few).
Just 10 minutes ago I explained to somebody here, who did not understand the basic principles of economy, such as capital formation based on savings, why the Chinese are buyin USA property and then I see this story and comments. The reason that the Chinese can and are buying USA property anx productive assets is that they cannot exchange their productive output for American output. The USA worker is made unproductive by American government and the foreigners, who export 500Billion USD/year more than USA exports to them (trade defficit) need to get rid of the dollars that are collecting dust and causing rising prices in their countries.
IBM sold this because they were offered a large cash amount (2,000,000,000) and 3,00,000,000 in Lenovo stock, and now IBM will enjoy productivity of a Chinese company that is not subjected to the insane USA anti-individual freedom rules, regulations, taxes and inflation. IBM will get rid of some American employees, who are made too expensive by USA government (I am not at all talking about salaries here, so do not bother) in a country where savings and productivity are punished, not rewarded since US government killed the free market.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Yup. They've got their head in the clouds. Their management personnel keep their heads somewhere else.
Lenovo isn't getting System P hardware. They're only getting System X, which is the x86 stuff.
I find it absolutely hilarious the way everyone disparages Chinese manufacturing while 95% of all electronics, clothing, and gadgetry is made in China or other asian countries.
Scariest of all are the ill-informed masses who think that IBM, HP, Dell, etc. actually make any of their own parts any more. They're US companies in name only.
Wake up. Globalization has already happened.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.