Lenovo Soars on Business Customer Sales Discussion

[Andy Patrizio]

If you ask a random person on the street, "Who makes ThinkPads?", they will probably say IBM, but the truth is that Lenovo is the mighty company responsible for transforming ThinkPads and IdeaPads into some of the best PCs on the market. Several years after buying the IBM PC business, Lenovo is now the number two PC maker in the world. How did they do it?

Read the full content of this Article: Lenovo Soars on Business Customer Sales

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[TSE]

Lenovo has really successfully kept Thinkpad quality at a maximum but also been able to get the price low enough to where consumers can purchase them.

Although I don't like where the Thinkpad MIGHT head (Chiclet keyboards, more consumer-oriented designs) that Lenovo has been incorporating into some of it's designs (X1, X130e), for now Lenovo has done a great job.

[Mitlov]

Good on them. What I'd love to see Lenovo focus on next is narrowing the gap in build quality between the ThinkPad and IdeaPad line. Obviously a $1000 consumer-oriented multimedia machine will never be built like a $2000 business-class laptop, but I'd like to see IdeaPads with similar screen quality, case quality, etc as higher-end Sonys, Dell XPSes, and HP Envy's.

[MidnightSun]

Good on them. What I'd love to see Lenovo focus on next is narrowing the gap in build quality between the ThinkPad and IdeaPad line. Obviously a $1000 consumer-oriented multimedia machine will never be built like a $2000 business-class laptop, but I'd like to see IdeaPads with similar screen quality, case quality, etc as higher-end Sonys, Dell XPSes, and HP Envy's.

Lenovo contracts out IdeaPad production to ODMs, so it'll probably always remain about in-line with other consumer-grade machines. But, that said, the keyboard of some recent IdeaPads are actually quite nice; they're similar to the island keyboards used in the Thinkpad Edge line.

[Mitlov]

Lenovo contracts out IdeaPad production to ODMs, so it'll probably always remain about in-line with other consumer-grade machines. But, that said, the keyboard of some recent IdeaPads are actually quite nice; they're similar to the island keyboards used in the Thinkpad Edge line.

Except that consumer grade machines don't have a uniform build quality. The Vaio F and the Acer Aspire are both built by ODMs (the Vaio F is not built in-house at Sony), but the difference in materials and build quality is night and day.

Specify better materials and tighter tolerances and an ODM will build it that way. Specify bargain-basement build quality and the exact same ODM will build it that way. It's not the ODM that really determines build quality, it's the specs supplied by the company.

And I agree that IdeaPad keyboards are really nice; I was more thinking of screens and cases where I'd like to see some improvement.

[John Ratsey]

Lenovo contracts out IdeaPad production to ODMs, so it'll probably always remain about in-line with other consumer-grade machines.

But isn't the production of some / all Thinkpads also contracted out? My Thinkpad T420s was shipped direct to me from Wistron infoComm.

John

[SemiExpert]

Lenovo has made a big retail marketing push, as well a downmarket push leveraging the equity left in the ThinkPad brand. Ideapads and even lower end ThinkPad branded notebooks are making their way into retail stores in North America. It's working, most likely because of American consumer fatigue with better known Windows PC brands. Lenovo is also strong in China because it's a big Chinese company and China is a big market.

The downside is that Lenovo has a huge, confusing product range, muddled marketing and risks depreciating the last remaining equity in the ThinkPad brand. I've read about Lenovo supposedly cancelling ThinkPad orders when the discounts were too much in favor the customer, current high end ThinkPads developing cracks in the plastic around the screen latch.....in short, I'm not sure Lenovo is superior to any other PC brand in any given market segment. Any notion of superiority is probably just as much a myth as the notion of ThinkPad superiority in the days of IBM ownership. Just because IBM lost a fortune on selling PCs didn't make the products superior. It's just that back in the days of IBM, back before the expansion of the consumer and small business notebook sectors, many notebook users were working for large enterprises. When you had a ThinkPad issue, you just called your own IT department, and presto, they gave you another ThinkPad. Of course, the whole reason IBM had the ThinkPad line was to sell other more profitable services, and reports indicate that the reason IBM sold the ThinkPad line to Lenovo over other bidders was to gain favor with the Chinese government and sell more services to the Chinese government. I guess the big plan worked.

[MidnightSun]

I've read about Lenovo supposedly cancelling ThinkPad orders when the discounts were too much in favor the customer

Not sure where you get your information for any of the claims you make in your post, but it may interest you to know that both my Thinkpads were ordered when I found website price-glitches (T500: P8700 cheaper than a P8600 by $50; X120e: Adobe Acrobat X was a -$117 addition instead of a +$117 option). I've never heard of Lenovo ever doing this.

The only point that you make that I do readily agree with is that Lenovo has a mess of a product line, although on the flip side, that does give informed buyers more options.

[Pseudorandom]

I've read about Lenovo supposedly cancelling ThinkPad orders when the discounts were too much in favor the customer,

This couldn't be further from reality. Recently, the X120e Adobe Acrobat pricing error gave buyers a huge $100+ discount and Lenovo went through with it.

current high end ThinkPads developing cracks in the plastic around the screen latch.....

I don't like your phrasing here. You sound like this is a widespread issue, which it isn't.

[zephxiii]

Great!! that means ebay should stay well flooded with used Thinkpads!! I am excited...even though my wallet isn't lol.