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  • Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

    I was skeptical of this myself knowing the quality issue facing many Chinese products, but Lenovo actually did it.

    I think the biggest secret to their success is their willingness to invest in their own factories and overseas R&D centers.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-1...f-the-day.html

    Lenovo Beats IBM Since 2004 PC Deal: Chart of the Day
    By Bloomberg News Dec 12, 2014 6:00 AM GMT+0800 1


    A decade after Lenovo Group Ltd. (992) bought International Business Machines Corp.’s personal-computer unit, shares of the Chinese company are up about 300 percent while “Big Blue’s” have lagged behind the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.


    The CHART OF THE DAY tracks Lenovo, IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and the S&P 500 starting from Dec. 8, 2004, when the $1.25 billion deal was announced. IBM’s 67 percent gain through this Dec. 10 trailed the U.S. stock benchmark’s 72 percent increase and HP’s 77 percent. Shares of Dell, the largest PC maker 10 years ago, had tumbled by two-thirds before founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Management took it private in a $24.9 billion leveraged buyout in 2013.


    “Low-cost, scale manufacturing plus PC focus was an advantage for Lenovo over U.S. counterparts,” said Stephen Yang, head of institutional research at Sun Hung Kai Financial Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Preferred PC vendor status by government and institutions in China provided Lenovo a stable base to be more aggressive in other countries.”


    Lenovo has consistently led HP since 2013 as the biggest PC maker, according to research firm Gartner Inc. The 2004 deal, which included IBM’s ThinkPad brand, vaulted the Chinese company from eighth at the time to third. Lenovo’s rally defied what Michael Dell told reporters the day the deal was unveiled: “When was the last time you saw a successful merger or acquisition in the computer industry?” he said. “It hasn’t happened in a long, long time.”


    Somewhat mirroring that transaction, Lenovo this October purchased IBM’s low-end server business for $2.1 billion, making it the third-largest server vendor behind HP and Dell. IBM divested to focus on areas such as cloud computing and data analytics. Also in October, the Chinese company bought Motorola Mobility from Google Inc. for $2.9 billion to boost its smartphone business to No. 3 globally. IBM is about 10 times bigger by market value than Lenovo’s $15 billion.


    “The principles we applied to the integration of the IBM PCD are still valid and will be applied now,” Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told a management meeting in October, according to text supplied by a company spokesman. “Bringing teams from three different cultures together is a significant challenge. But it is one we at Lenovo have successfully faced before.”
    Last edited by touchring; January 05, 2015, 10:18 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

    my lenovo thinkpad x301 didn't hold up nearly as well as the ibm thinkpad x1[?] it replaced. just sayin'.

    when it was time to upgrade i took one look at windows 8 and all the touchscreen laptops [wtf?] being promoted, and bought a macbook pro.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

      Originally posted by jk View Post
      my lenovo thinkpad x301 didn't hold up nearly as well as the ibm thinkpad x1[?] it replaced. just sayin'.

      when it was time to upgrade i took one look at windows 8 and all the touchscreen laptops [wtf?] being promoted, and bought a macbook pro.
      I have been using a MacBook Pro as my own personal computer since 2008. I would dearly love to be able to get a modern update of the ThinkPad I had in 2004 (T43p, 1400x1050 IPS panel with 4x3 aspect ratio, the best notepad keyboard bar none) but such a machine no longer exists. I purchased a fully-loaded MacBook Pro in 2013 and it's a really nice machine. However, it sacrifices usability for aesthetics: I hate the chiclet keyboard, the keyboard layout with its lack of Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and Delete keys, and the lack of an antiglare screen. Despite all the things I don't like, though, I believe the MacBook Pro is the nicest notebook computer on the market. Sadly, this is more due to the utter incompetence of Apple's competitors than Apple's excellence. The only thing on the MacBook Pro that I think is very clever and useful is the MagSafe power connector.

      On the subject of touchring's original posting, Lenovo succeeded where HP/COMPAQ failed because Lenovo firstly purchased the best product in the industry (the ThinkPad). Secondly and more importantly, Lenovo's acquisition was to increase their market share and give them a brand presence whereas the HP/COMPAQ merger/acquisition was a tactic by Fiorina to extend her tenure as CEO. Acquiring COMPAQ probably bought her an extra one or two years in the corner office.

      The problem as I see it is that the non-Apple manufacturers either put no effort into designing a good computer or they are too incompetent to design a good computer and introduce "unfeatures." Practically every notebook I've seen now copies the Apple keyboard layout and has gone to a chiclet keyboard. Lenovo's changes to the ergonomics of their computers are counterproductive: a double height Delete key? A jumbo-sized Esc key?

      One thing about the Apple product: It's fragile. I worry that my computer might break if I run it too hot or whatever. There are plenty of stories of BGAs not done right and the MacBook Pros one day just dying. That's what happened to the MBP I bought in 2008. It was the first computer that I have ever owned that failed on me and I am a person who still has working computers from 1998. In fact, for my first MBP, which I bought new, my AC adapter failed within the first 24 hours of my owning the computer.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

        Originally posted by jk View Post
        my lenovo thinkpad x301 didn't hold up nearly as well as the ibm thinkpad x1[?] it replaced. just sayin'.

        when it was time to upgrade i took one look at windows 8 and all the touchscreen laptops [wtf?] being promoted, and bought a macbook pro.

        I'm using it for work so I opted for Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.1. For a personal notebook, I will get a Chromebook if it were only for Internet surfing or Gmail.

        The consensus is that Lenovo "thinkpad" is not as good as the original Thinkpad and that the older generation of Notebooks and PCs in general are more durable than the current ones.

        Fujitsu makes very durable notebook and PCs. My "Made-in-Japan" Fujitsu Lifebook still works very well after almost 6 years despite being switched on 12-16 hours a day. But I'm unwilling to get a new Fujitsu because the user base has shrunk so much in recent years.
        Last edited by touchring; January 06, 2015, 01:22 AM.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

          Originally posted by Milton Kuo View Post
          I have been using a MacBook Pro as my own personal computer since 2008. I would dearly love to be able to get a modern update of the ThinkPad I had in 2004 (T43p, 1400x1050 IPS panel with 4x3 aspect ratio, the best notepad keyboard bar none) but such a machine no longer exists. I purchased a fully-loaded MacBook Pro in 2013 and it's a really nice machine. However, it sacrifices usability for aesthetics: I hate the chiclet keyboard, the keyboard layout with its lack of Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and Delete keys, and the lack of an antiglare screen. Despite all the things I don't like, though, I believe the MacBook Pro is the nicest notebook computer on the market. Sadly, this is more due to the utter incompetence of Apple's competitors than Apple's excellence. The only thing on the MacBook Pro that I think is very clever and useful is the MagSafe power connector.

          On the subject of touchring's original posting, Lenovo succeeded where HP/COMPAQ failed because Lenovo firstly purchased the best product in the industry (the ThinkPad). Secondly and more importantly, Lenovo's acquisition was to increase their market share and give them a brand presence whereas the HP/COMPAQ merger/acquisition was a tactic by Fiorina to extend her tenure as CEO. Acquiring COMPAQ probably bought her an extra one or two years in the corner office.

          The problem as I see it is that the non-Apple manufacturers either put no effort into designing a good computer or they are too incompetent to design a good computer and introduce "unfeatures." Practically every notebook I've seen now copies the Apple keyboard layout and has gone to a chiclet keyboard. Lenovo's changes to the ergonomics of their computers are counterproductive: a double height Delete key? A jumbo-sized Esc key?

          One thing about the Apple product: It's fragile. I worry that my computer might break if I run it too hot or whatever. There are plenty of stories of BGAs not done right and the MacBook Pros one day just dying. That's what happened to the MBP I bought in 2008. It was the first computer that I have ever owned that failed on me and I am a person who still has working computers from 1998. In fact, for my first MBP, which I bought new, my AC adapter failed within the first 24 hours of my owning the computer.
          Owning a Thinkpad T43 (with a 1400x1050 IPS panel) and needing a replacement, my choice was between the MBP 13" and the Lenovo Thinkpad x240.
          Finally I chose the x240, as it comes with a much better keyboard, anti-glare full HD IPS panel, has dual batteries (hot-swap on the move when needing extra autonomy), has an integrated 4G/LTE modem (the European model carries the world-wide capable modem) and is user-serviceable (if anything breaks outside of the warranty period I'll replace it myself... already did that for the battery, keyboard and system board of the Thinkpad t43 which is still working, just a tad slow in the modern world).

          On the downside, the display panel at 12.5" is not as big as the 13" in the MBP.

          It's a shame that modern notebooks (safe maybe the Google Pixel) use 16:9 or 16:10 panels... 4:3 is such a better fit for productivity (as opposed to viewing films).
          engineer with little (or even no) economic insight

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

            White MacBook from 2006-2009 is the most reliable Apple product I have experience with ( I had a Mac laptop in the early 1990s.

            My kid was lucky enough to get 2006 Mac Book with a dead hard drive. I pulled the hard drive out and replaced it with a 120 gig SSD drive. My kids old Mac Book runs better than my MacBook Pro (circa 2010).

            Every laptop platform is made as cheaply as possible and this results in a keyboard that is too small for the hands of Men (my father in law is struggling to admit to crappy keyboard of the MacBook Pro (circa 2014).

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

              Originally posted by jk View Post
              ....when it was time to upgrade i took one look at windows 8 and all the touchscreen laptops [wtf?] being promoted, and bought a macbook pro.
              +1
              EXACTLY - guess its because typing is so 'old school' vs touching n swiping being more like the cash registers (that wide swaths of the 'new school' crowd are now working on... think retail, F&B = where 'all the jobs are')

              Originally posted by touchring View Post
              I'm using it for work so I opted for Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.1....
              ....
              +1
              after hearing 'no more win xp, only win8 available' - went with a 'custom built' HP with win7pro/64.

              even tho i NEVER had a problem with xp - or HP - not once in the 5years did it ever krash on the prev machine - altho i typically stop 'updating' after about 3months, as long as everything still does what i want/expect it to do ( = why bother, since my obs is that they send ya further and further out on the updates/upgrades plank - and at some point that plank snaps and drops ya into the drink = 'time to buy a new one' ??? (or wipe the drive and start from scratch with a re-load)

              and speaking of updates - am about to start in on my 'once a year, whether it needs it or not' win update:

              does anybody happen to know of a 'shortcut' to bypass the prev years worth of (win7/64) updates - which basically just re-update the updates - so that rather than having to choke down a whole years worth, 1 at a time, sequentially - can just start with a 'service pack' that does the whole show and bypasses the 'ooops, shouldnt have updated that one' that likely occurs?

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                Originally posted by FrankL View Post
                Owning a Thinkpad T43 (with a 1400x1050 IPS panel) and needing a replacement, my choice was between the MBP 13" and the Lenovo Thinkpad x240.
                Finally I chose the x240, as it comes with a much better keyboard, anti-glare full HD IPS panel, has dual batteries (hot-swap on the move when needing extra autonomy), has an integrated 4G/LTE modem (the European model carries the world-wide capable modem) and is user-serviceable (if anything breaks outside of the warranty period I'll replace it myself... already did that for the battery, keyboard and system board of the Thinkpad t43 which is still working, just a tad slow in the modern world).

                On the downside, the display panel at 12.5" is not as big as the 13" in the MBP.

                It's a shame that modern notebooks (safe maybe the Google Pixel) use 16:9 or 16:10 panels... 4:3 is such a better fit for productivity (as opposed to viewing films).
                Being able to service the computer yourself is a real nicety and, at least when IBM still owned the ThinkPad line, detailed documents of how to service the various components were readily available from IBM. It's just a real shame that IBM's management was not smart enough to figure out how to make money on the ThinkPad business. Apple shows that it can be a very profitable business to sell computers.

                The thing I find really shocking is that prior to the arrival of Apple's notebooks with Retina displays, most notebook computers had approximately 900 lines of vertical resolution. That is to say, almost ten years after I had the ThinkPad T43, displays on notebooks had actually regressed (many, if not most, didn't even have IPS panels). It wasn't until Apple release its notebooks with Retina displays that the other vendors started releasing high resolution display panels on their notebook computers.

                The widescreen displays are really only good for watching movies, as you note, and reading Chinese and Japanese the traditional way: top-to-bottom, right-to-left.

                Lenovo has released a new ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The comments from readers are not very complimentary towards Lenovo's stewardship of the ThinkPad line:

                http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/...ad-love-affair

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                  Lack of proper display panel options were a primary reason for waiting such a long time to buy a successor to my Thinkpad T43...

                  As far as comments on what Lenovo seems to be doing to the Thinkpad line: their latest releases seem to revert some of the previous poor choices (cut down on the amount of custom keyboard layout, re-introduce trackpoint and dedicated mouse buttons). Note that the hardware maintenance manuals of Lenovo Thinkpads are just as easy get get hold of as for the old IBM Thinkpads models.

                  With the reintroduction of IPS panels on laptops, for me there's not that much missing compared to the Thinkpads of IBM... primarily it'd be the lack of dual-channel memory (being limited to 8GB single channel RAM is ridiculous in 2015, when my 2005 t43 had 2GB already).

                  in the online forums there'll always be this community of die-hard fans that resist any change and insist on having a non-chiclet keyboard on their Thinkpad (really, the Lenovo chiclets are not that bad at all; much better than the other options available on the market), get their Thinklight back (backlit works fine) and pretend that IBM Thinkpads never had any reliability issues (patently false; The T43 series for example has a long history of system board flex issues leading to early death, run hot and have noisy cooling, etc.).
                  engineer with little (or even no) economic insight

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                    Originally posted by FrankL View Post
                    in the online forums there'll always be this community of die-hard fans that resist any change and insist on having a non-chiclet keyboard on their Thinkpad (really, the Lenovo chiclets are not that bad at all; much better than the other options available on the market), get their Thinklight back (backlit works fine) and pretend that IBM Thinkpads never had any reliability issues (patently false; The T43 series for example has a long history of system board flex issues leading to early death, run hot and have noisy cooling, etc.).

                    If you're referring to keyboard backlight, I think it's already available, at least for the T440 series.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                      Originally posted by touchring View Post
                      If you're referring to keyboard backlight, I think it's already available, at least for the T440 series.
                      He's referring to a tiny light that used to be in the lid of the ThinkPads that would shine down onto the keyboard. It was actually a pretty interesting feature because it provided a way to read papers and books using the notebook in addition to the more obvious use of illuminating the keyboard.

                      The backlit keys aren't really necessary to a touch typist with a good keyboard. The original ThinkPads grouped their function keys in groups of four, had a standard six-key layout for Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn, inverted-T formation arrow keys, and a standard QWERTY layout. Coupled with the TrackPoint that eliminated the need to move your fingers from home position (which could be found by touch since there were bumps on the F and J keys), I could use the computer even if I could not see my hands.

                      There's nothing really wrong with backlit keys and in some ways, they've been a forcing function for better keys. I believe the letters on the keys are no longer stickers that ultimately wear away. I think keys are now two-piece parts where one part is the key with a cutout that looks like the letter and the second part is a translucent plastic that fills the cutout on the key.

                      Still, for a power user, backlit keys are unnecessary and less useful than the ThinkLight. (Admittedly, I rarely ever used the ThinkLight.)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                        I had the ability to play with 8 in my software test lab at work. What a POS, why does microsoft think moving every thing around everytime is a good idea?
                        Once you are in your application, word, excel, browser, game etc does it really make any difference what the look and feel of the OS is??? I still have not
                        figured out search in win7, and I use that all the time to look through saved documents. I had to download a third party application to do this.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                          Originally posted by charliebrown View Post
                          I still have not figured out search in win7, and I use that all the time to look through saved documents. I had to download a third party application to do this.
                          Can you recommend one? I've tried 2 that are unsatisfactory.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                            Originally posted by Thailandnotes View Post
                            Can you recommend one? I've tried 2 that are unsatisfactory.

                            Have you tried File Locator Lite?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Lenovo did what HP and Compaq failed.

                              I am currently using fileseek by binary fortress. Seems fast. There is a free version and a licensed version for $9 that gives you a few more bells and whistles.

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