No more Thinkpads?

<http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/03/technology/ibm_pc.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes>


NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. has put its
personal computing business up for sale in a deal that could be worth as
much as $2 billion, The New York Times reported Friday.

IBM (Research), now the No. 3 PC manufacturer behind Dell Inc.
(Research) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (Research), is likely to include all
of its desktop and laptop computers in the sale, which could bring $1
billion to $2 billion, people close to the negotiations told the newspaper.

If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
would they be buying?


"timeOday" <timeOday-> wrote in message
news:rdadnVNxIJ54Cy3cRVn-...
> <http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/03/technology/ibm_pc.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes>
>
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. has put its
> personal computing business up for sale in a deal that could be worth as
> much as $2 billion, The New York Times reported Friday.
>
> IBM (Research), now the No. 3 PC manufacturer behind Dell Inc. (Research)
> and Hewlett-Packard Co. (Research), is likely to include all of its
> desktop and laptop computers in the sale, which could bring $1 billion to
> $2 billion, people close to the negotiations told the newspaper.

>If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
>would they be buying?

I'd cosider the DELL "Latitude" series.

Regards

Whoever will buy IBM's PC business will obviously keep the Thinkpad
name, but its quality will most likely suffer. Currently Thinkpads are
the best notebooks in each class, far better than anything Dell, HP and
the others offer. But this quality comes at a premium price. My guess is
their quality will go down, as will their price.

But even if the quality will remain the same, they will still lack IBM's
global support network. There isn't a single company that comes even
close to IBM in terms of support (Compaq business class support was
amazing, but that was before Fiorina bought them)

I guess this is the end of an era in personal computing. Maybe it was
about time though...

Cosmin

Chip Orange wrote:
> If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
> would they be buying?
>
>
> "timeOday" <timeOday-> wrote in message
> news:rdadnVNxIJ54Cy3cRVn-...
>
>><http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/03/technology/ibm_pc.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes>
>>
>>
>>NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. has put its
>>personal computing business up for sale in a deal that could be worth as
>>much as $2 billion, The New York Times reported Friday.
>>
>>IBM (Research), now the No. 3 PC manufacturer behind Dell Inc. (Research)
>>and Hewlett-Packard Co. (Research), is likely to include all of its
>>desktop and laptop computers in the sale, which could bring $1 billion to
>>$2 billion, people close to the negotiations told the newspaper.
>
>
>

"John" <> wrote in message
news:...
> >If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
>>would they be buying?
>
> I'd cosider the DELL "Latitude" series.
>
> Regards

Just to clarify my comment; I meant, I thought they would continue to
produce IBM product, including thinkpads, otherwise what would the buyer of
the IBM PC division be paying for (if not the IBM and Thinkpad brand names
as well as their design).

Chip

Chip Orange wrote:
> "John" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>
>>>If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
>>>would they be buying?
>>
>>I'd cosider the DELL "Latitude" series.
>>
>>Regards
>
>
> Just to clarify my comment; I meant, I thought they would continue to
> produce IBM product, including thinkpads, otherwise what would the buyer of
> the IBM PC division be paying for (if not the IBM and Thinkpad brand names
> as well as their design).
>
> Chip

I really doubt whoever will buy IBM's PC division will be allowed to use
the IBM name. My guess is Thinkpad will become a brand of its own, with
no attachments to IBM. But at this point, it's just speculation,
although we'll find out soon enough.

Cosmin

"Cosmin N." <> wrote in
newsa6dnZR_zo-KwC_cRVn-:

> Chip Orange wrote:
>> Just to clarify my comment; I meant, I thought they would continue to
>> produce IBM product, including thinkpads, otherwise what would the
>> buyer of the IBM PC division be paying for (if not the IBM and
>> Thinkpad brand names as well as their design).
>>
>> Chip
>
> I really doubt whoever will buy IBM's PC division will be allowed to
> use the IBM name. My guess is Thinkpad will become a brand of its own,
> with no attachments to IBM. But at this point, it's just speculation,
> although we'll find out soon enough.
>
> Cosmin

Think of Hitachi Travelstar that was formerly IBM Travelsar brand. At
least with that former part of IBM business everthing seems to be good so
far...

Alexei

Beyond that, it's not clear that the sale by IBM involved both laptops
and desktops, indeed I had the impression it was desktops only.
Contrary to what many believe, IBM does still make desktop PCs, they
just don't sell them through retail distribution channels.


Chip Orange wrote:

> If someone wasn't going to continue to produce IBM product, exactly what
> would they be buying?
>
>
> "timeOday" <timeOday-> wrote in message
> news:rdadnVNxIJ54Cy3cRVn-...
>
>><http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/03/technology/ibm_pc.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes>
>>
>>
>>NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. has put its
>>personal computing business up for sale in a deal that could be worth as
>>much as $2 billion, The New York Times reported Friday.
>>
>>IBM (Research), now the No. 3 PC manufacturer behind Dell Inc. (Research)
>>and Hewlett-Packard Co. (Research), is likely to include all of its
>>desktop and laptop computers in the sale, which could bring $1 billion to
>>$2 billion, people close to the negotiations told the newspaper.
>
>
>

Cosmin N. wrote:
> I really doubt whoever will buy IBM's PC division will be allowed to
> use the IBM name. My guess is Thinkpad will become a brand of its
> own, with no attachments to IBM. But at this point, it's just
> speculation, although we'll find out soon enough.

Lenovo has been granted the use the IBM name on Thinkpads for five
years. So we'll be seeing "IBM Thinkpads" made in China for another
five years, which is no different from the IBM Thinkpads of the last two
or three years.

After 2010, perhaps they'll be called "Le Thinkpad", which will most
certainly appeal to fashion designers and the French.

--
da
~~
"OE Quotefix"
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/
to fix Outlook Express' broken quoting.

"Donkey Agony" <root@[127.0.0.1]> writes:
> Lenovo has been granted the use the IBM name on Thinkpads for five
> years. So we'll be seeing "IBM Thinkpads" made in China for another
> five years, which is no different from the IBM Thinkpads of the last two
> or three years.

HP laptops used to be pretty good, but now they are junk, even though
they still say HP on them. Everyone's concern is whether Thinkpad
quality will go the same way. Whether they'll still say Thinkpad on
them is less important.