Chairman Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo said the company is seeking acquisitions to regain the world’s third-largest personal- computer seller ranking lost to Acer last year.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television broadcast Yang Yuanqing said, ‘We are not satisfied with our current market share and global ranking. I believe there will be further consolidation in the industry and we hope to seize the opportunity to buy.’

Lenovo, the Chinese company that shot to prominence with the 2005 purchase of IBM’s PC unit, had its European expansion plans foiled last year when Acer bought Packard Bell.

Joseph Ho, a Daiwa Institute of Research analyst said, ‘It makes sense for Lenovo to want to acquire as it has the financial muscle. He rates Lenovo ‘outperform.’ But asks: ‘The question is what to acquire and at what price.’

Lenovo had cash and equivalents of $2.2 billion as of Dec. 31, according to the latest information from the company, which gets more than half of its sales from Asia.

The $1.25 billion purchase of the IBM business three years ago made the company the world’s third-largest computer maker.

Lenovo, which moved its headquarters to Raleigh, North Carolina, after the acquisition, lost the position to Acer in the second half of 2007, after the Taipei-based rival bought Packard Bell.

There are simply not that many possibilities around.

Lenovo’s current market value is $7.5 billion, about 6% of the size of industry leader Hewlett- Packard. Acer is valued at $5.4 billion.

Charles Guo, a Hong Kong-based analyst at JPMorgan suggested that for companies seeking to grab a larger share of the Chinese market, domestic PC makers such as Founder Technology and Tsinghua Tongfang may be takeover targets, said .

He said, ‘Acquiring Chinese players like Founder and Tongfang will give greater access to the market.’

Chairman Yang Yuanqing made the most remarkable statement when he said, ‘The most important thing is growing our market share, more than making money.’
Source: Bloomberg

So far Lenovo seem to have consistently go it right and now it is going a step beyond its business-user focus to hurl itself at personal computer with six new PCs.

This may be poor timing.

For the first time, in Japan computers are being outsold by other devices. Awful to relate but personal PCs are not as important as they once were. Not dead, not sick, not even a slight fever. But not the most robust of growing health.

By buying IBM’s personal computer business three years ago, Lenovo vaulted from the No. 8 position among PC makers to become the world’s third biggest.

Everyone is snapping at its heels so it is taking two major, major step to stay up there with the biggies. First it is sponsoring the Olympic Games which will give it a lot of exposure. Now it has announced that it’s expanding from its focus on business users to target the consumer market on a global basis.

Three laptops and three desktop models will be launched in multiple countries including the U.S., China, France, Russia, India, Australia, and Indonesia. Until now the company was best known for its ThinkPad business laptops. This is about to change.

Deepak Advani, the company’s chief marketing officer said, ‘This move is very important in the long run for us to meet our global aspirations. The ThinkPad is the gold standard in business notebooks, and it does help build the global brand, but with the consumer strategy we can turbocharge it.’

In the third quarter of 2007, Lenovo’s share of global PC shipments came to 8.2%, edging Acer’s 8.1% market share.

Acer competes heavily on price, Lenovo tries to position itself as the quality bran. Not that it makes that much difference. I just had to look to see I was using an Acer. But with a wireless Logitech keyboard.

Maybe I could lust after the IdeaPad U110 which is a 2.3-pound laptop with a bright red top and a high-sheen, 11-inch screen that runs right to the edge of the lid.

All six machines also offer facial recognition-based security: When you boot up, photographic software studies your face through a built-in camera above the screen, confirming your identity before it lets you start using the machine. With me this will be a problem. My mother used to have trouble recognizing me. Mark you, she had eight other children to remember.
Source: Business Times

Lenovo will end its sponsorship of the Olympics after the 2008 summer games in Beijing.

In explanation it said after the Beijing games, it will have accomplished its major goal for the sponsorship: raising awareness of the company’s brand.

This is indeed true. And it is appropriate that Lenovo should be involved with the Olympics in Beijing but not after that. For being a major sponsor costs big, big, huge money. And some sponsors have been so depleted by the experience that they have disappeared. Ansett Airlines in Australia being one of them.

Lenovo was a little-known company when it bought IBM’s personal computer division in 2005. It has managed to build on that brand and is slowly moving to selling more computers to consumers, instead of to the businesses that have been Lenovo’s top customers outside China.

Executives told U.S. News & World Report they thought Olympic advertising would be more effective than traditional marketing schemes. Which is undoubtedly true. But it is not a game for the faint of heart or the short of pocket.

How much did it cost Lenovo?

The company is not saying but no less than $80 million and possibly $100 million.

Lenovo has now said it will provide more than 500 technicians and some 20,000 pieces of network infrastructure, including computers, servers and monitors, in Beijing. After which, all things being equal, it will be well enough known not to have to indulge in such an expensive sponsorship again.
Source: Triangle Business Journal

Confession of bias. As this was being written the writer bought a new Lenovo (NOT at a journalists’ discount) and it appears a most excellent piece of well-constructed kit. Now Lenovo has said its profit in the latest quarter jumped 178 % as it captured a bigger share of the global market for personal computers after a reorganization.

Earnings were $105.3 million, up from $37.9 million a year earlier.
Revenue in the period rose almost 20% to $4.4 billion.

The chairman, Yang Yuanqing said, ‘We are very happy with our consistent growth. Lenovo is no longer just a company within the Chinese market, it is a worldwide company.’

The company said it believed it had been successful in building the Lenovo brand and would stop using the IBM logo, two years ahead of schedule. This is correct. It is already doing so.

The company said PC shipments for the quarter grew by 23%, outpacing the industry average.

IBM and its partner MediaTek are trying to create chipsets based on millimeter wave technology. If the two companies make the breakthrough:

it will let users download a 10 gigabyte file in five seconds. As in a hundred times faster than anything currently available.

And it will probably mean a wireless house as far as entertainment and computers are concerned.

T.C. Chen, vice president, science and technology, IBM Research, said in a statement: ‘This collaborative effort will enable consumers to wirelessly transfer large multimedia data files around their home and/or offices in seconds. This will enable a world where you can have your entertainment when you want and where you want it.’

The technology seeks to harness the highest frequency portion of the radio spectrum, which can accommodate huge flows of data. A prototype has already been demonstrated so a guess, purely a guess, is that it will be on the market in less then five years. Possibly less than ten.

The picture is of the IBM Stretch indexing and instruction unit, which was essentially a pipelined computer on its own, and dates from about 1958. For the time, it was remarkably fast.
Source: Red Herring

The thought that the IBM-made supercomputer called p575 (looking extremely boring in our picture but supercomputers are like that) bought by China for weather forecasting at the 2008 Olympics could be used for military purposes after games is based on some false premises. China already has the ability to domestically produce machines that run at faster speeds and has already demonstrated this ability.

In 2004, Dawning Information Industry, a Chinese computer manufacturer, completed its 4000A supercomputer, which was the tenth fastest machine in the world at the time with a maximum operational speed of 11.2 teraflops compared to 9.8 teraflops for the IBM System p575. As you well know, but it had slipped your mind just for the moment, a teraflop is a measure of computing speed equal to one trillion floating point operations per second.

In August 2007, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau (BMB) purchased the IBM System p575 supercomputer specifically for weather forecasting at the 2008 games.

The system is capable of analyzing information from a 44,000 square kilometer (about 17,000 square mile) area to provide hourly weather forecasts for each square kilometer. The 80-node, 9.8 teraflop machine is reportedly 1,000 times faster than the computer used during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Sin Jisong, chief forecaster at BMB, claimed that weather is very unpredictable in Beijing and IBM researcher Zaphiris Christidis reported that the system will be the most advanced one ever used by an Olympic host.

Which does not make it the fastest computer although it is probably the faster computer ever used for weather forecasting.

The Chinese government is very serious about getting the weather forecasts for the Olympics right as it has, in addition to purchasing the IBM System p575, launched a satellite to recognize changes in weather and the Beijing Weather Modification Office has attempted to manually induce rainfall using chemicals, including silver iodide, to make water droplets in clouds grow faster and thus rain sooner. The Beijing Weather Modification Office shoots shells containing the chemicals into clouds from the ground or dropped into them by planes.

Rain control is seen as being vitally important because the Chinese Olympic Committee will hold the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as numerous other events, in open-air venues, including the $500 million Beijing Olympic Stadium.

Spending a few million dollars for accurate weather prediction is likely justified by the reported total of $40 billion that China is investing into the 2008 Olympics, which Chinese Olympic Committee Vice President Tu Mingde says ’surpasses the importance of sports itself.’
Source: ISN Security Watch

Lenovo, which is a Chinese company that sells and produces what was the IBM line of personal computers under its own logo, will open two new, state-of-the-art manufacturing plants and fulfillment operations centers in Monterrey, Mexico, and Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, India.

Both facilities will support regional customer requirements including product assembly and configuration, distribution services and logistics as well as additional value-added services.

So, to get this straight, a Chinese computer company is outsourcing product assembly to other countries.

The Baddi facility will be operational in the third fiscal quarter of 2007, the Monterrey plant is expected to come online by mid-2008. Lenevo will use these new manufacturing plants to significantly increase global production capacity of Think-branded and Lenovo-branded PCs.

Gerry P. Smith, senior vice president of Lenovo’s Global Supply Chain said in a statement, ‘These plants are an investment in Lenovo’s future that leverages our world-class manufacturing base in China and extends it globally to satisfy demand for Lenovo products in vital economic opportunity areas.

‘This announcement, together with the new facilities we recently announced in Shanghai, China, and North Carolina, will help us to improve our competitiveness and cost structure as well as accelerate our ability to reach new markets and buyer segments.’

Lenovo is also scouting locations in Central and Eastern Europe for a similar type of installation. The company has manufacturing facilities in Beijing, Huiyang, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China, and Pondicherry, India, and a new fulfillment center in Whitsett, North Carolina. Now showing off their machines is Brazilian genius Ronaldinho, seen here, for my money the greatest soccer player in the world who has charisma to spare. A very excellent spokesperson for Lenovo.
Source: TMCNet

Linux was considered by major software companies as the work of the devil although, in fact, it is the modification of earlier work done by Linus Torvalds, shown in our illustration.

Start with Unix which was first released in 1970. Then, under the GNU free software idea, Minix, a Unix-like system intended for academic use, was released in 1987. Then, in 1991, Linus Torvalds began to work on a replacement for Minix while he was attending the University of Helsinki. This eventually became Linux, a complete, fully functional free operating system.

(In 1992, Torvalds explained how he pronounces the word Linux: ‘li’ is pronounced with a short ee sound: compare prInt, mInImal etc. ‘nux’ is also short, non-diphtong, like in pUt.’)

Which may sound like a load of Linux but, in fact, Linux has always been a great worry to the software houses because it is free as a program (support is different) and works on personal computers.

Now, the world’s leading software and hardware providers such as Oracle, IBM and Intel are rushing to do compatibility testing and quality authentication with China’s local Linux products. If China says it will go with its own variety of Linux then you had better smartly get in step or you will miss out on the biggest potential market in the world. Our second illustration shows Larry Ellison of Oracle spruiking the Oracle Linux which is like Linux but much, much, much better. According to Larry Ellison.

Lu Shouqun, president of the China Open Source Software Promotion Union speaking at the ‘Summit Forum of Open Source action and China’s information industry development’ in Guangzhou said that since the 1990s, an Open Source movement represented by Linux has been springing up vigorously, bringing good development opportunities to China’s software industry.

In recent years the number of national local Linux enterprises has been growing.

According to the 2005 statistics, among the local enterprises, Red Flag Software led the pack with a market share of 32.1%. According to statistics from the China Open Source Software Promotion Union, sales of Linux and associated programs in the Chinese market reached RMB218 million in 2006, up 41% and higher than the international average. (How can a program which is free create turnover and profits? Support and modification and add-on programs.)

Seven million computers in the domestic market were signed up for pre-installation of Linux, making up 35% of the computers in the Chinese market. This probably does not make Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer into a happy chappie. Not at all.
Source: People’s Daily Online

First note that this forecast is made by an analyst company. Employees have openly admitted that the target is to get the forecast right half the time. Which means that half the time it is wrong. Not totally wrong. But wrong enough to invalidate a forecast.

In this case the first part of the forecast is almost certainly right.

Forrester states that by the end of 2008, there will be more than one billion personal computers in use worldwide. Not a figure with which one would like to argue.

Forrester then goes on to say that with ‘PC use growing rapidly in emerging markets and high-profile programs in place to reach previously untapped markets, Forrester predicts that there will be more than two billion PCs in use by 2015, representing more than 12% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2003 and 2015.’

And perhaps that second forecast is just a load of old moody. It may well be that the mobile phone gets to a stage where it replaces the PC. I do not know but I am damn certain Forrester does not know either.

Let us stick with the acceptable one billion PCs forecast. According to Forrester it took 27 years to reach that figure.

An interesting calculation and, I think, totally wrong.

The IBM personal computer was launched on August 12, 1981 but it was by no means the first computer. Anyway, I make that 26 years.

Forrester may not know computer history very well.

For example: was the Apple II a personal computer? Beyond doubt. It was advertised as such.The Apple II was launched in April 1977. That makes it thirty years if the batteries in my calculator have not packed it in again.

For me the first personal computer was the Altair 8800, shown above, which was introduced in a Popular Electronics magazine article in the January 1975 issue and had software written by, yes, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the start of Microsoft.

That would make the personal computer 32 years old. If you want to use the Apple II benchmark, thirty years. And there are other claimants.

If Forrester cannot work out when the first personal computer was released do we trust it to tell us what will happen in 2015? Not very much.

According to Forrester, the emerging Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) market will account for more than 775 million new PCs by 2015. It might. And then, yet again, it might not. It is all guesswork. Intelligent guesswork. Backed up by all sort of figures. Probably graphs as well. Which does not mean it should not be thought of as scientific forecasting.
Source: Forrester

Lenovo — Chinese-owned but US-based and best known for its US$1.25 billion purchase of the IBM ThinkPad brand two years ago — is looking to make major gains in the marketplace with a major move into the consumer notebook market.

‘You’ll be seeing more funkier non-ThinkPad consumer designs from us,’ said Matthew Kohut, Lenovo’s US-based ‘worldwide competitive analyst. He wouldn’t be drawn on timing, but the impression is the move is not far off — perhaps later his year or 2008

The company’s current range of ThinkPads are mostly severe black designs reflecting the conservative IBM heritage (the company also markets a ‘Family’ range of laptops for home and small business use, but few would escribe them as funky).

Most ThinkPads still carry the IBM logo, but that is due to be phased out over the next three years —it’s already disappeared from some corporate models unless the customer requests it, said Kohut.

Under those black casings, Lenovo is concentrating on building in new technologies and innovative engineering — none of it from IBM, which now has no involvement, Kohut stressed.

Two new models, due for delivery by the end of the month — the ThinkPads R61 and T61 14-inch widescreen models — are among the first to embrace the latest Santa Rosa platform from Intel, which includes faster processors, wireless-n WiFi connections and crisper graphics.

But Kohut preferred to talk about the new engineering, which includes twin magnesium rollcages for the hard drive area and screen top cover. You can drop your ThinkPad and hopefully not damage the screen, Kohut maintained, personally giving one of the screens a mighty hand-rap.

The top cover also holds up to nine antennas — 3G, Bluetooth, optional ultrawideband and as many as six for the MIMO Wireless-n connections — sandwiched between the magnesium rollcage and the outer skin to ensure good reception.

FireWire is now an option, and a thermal management system provides a 10% cooler laptop that won’t burn your lap, Lenovo claims.

Coming months will also see Wireless USB become an option — this is technology Kohut sees becoming near-universal in the future.

He also predicts hybrid hard disk/solid-state technology for the near future: currently solid-state memory, with a maximum 64GB, lacks the capacity for handling Vista and Office. The hybrid models will probably use Flash memory for the OS and HD for data and apps.

The company is also looking at fuel cells as a replacement for batteries — but don’t hold your breath, Kohut warns. The technology works fine — but the chances of airport security letting you walk through with a cartridge containing flammable methanol are close to zero.
Source: Computer Daily News