You would think that I would have something to say about IBM selling their PC division to a mysterious and Chinese company

being that I am in I.T. and all, plus don't forget the whole "Lotus Notes is an IBM product and William knows a lot about Lotus Notes" angle... actually that more or less sums it up.

Dell and HP machines are much cheaper than IBM machines, and essentially the same in terms of quality (or at least good enough for stable fleets of corporate PCs that can be configured and deployed or repaired and redeployed QUICKLY). It just doesn't make any sense that anyone would buy a more expensive not better IBM machine.

Okay... I can think of two reasons:

1. When IBM wants to compete on price, they absolutely can, so maybe some are getting a good deal.
2. IBM service has the ability to be excellent, so maybe some people feel like the price premium is worthwhile.

I have to imagine that from IBM's perspective, the continuous uphill climb to win back their PC market was part of the motivation to cut and run. They have way more profitable solutions and consulting groups. I've worked with these groups once or twice. Amazingly the solutions groups don't always prescribe IBM equipment or IBM software. Unsurprisingly, they do always seem to prescribe something that will eventually require more consulting, down the road. Even if you tell them, "at the end of our process, I want the internal staff to be self-reliant" they can be counted on to recommend a program whereby you pay to send internal staff to training update seminars that they facilitate. This used to bother me quite a bit, but a consultant needs to eat too!

I have to imagine that LENOVO will try to win the race to the bottom and sell the cheapest PCs possible. From a manufacturing cost stand-point, factories in China are a good way to go, but there are some tough obstacles. LENOVO doesn't seem to have much American or European presence. These are tough business environments because IT Managers in these regions are fussy about everything. A good vendor will need to have mature technical support of products that shouldn't really need technical support in the first place, the vendors should offer extremely low-cost custom factory integration (pre-imaging machines and asset tagging before packing them into boxes), order tracking should be very detailed, there should be an army of people who can answer my questions about "where's my shipment and why the hold up?"

A lot can go wrong if they have to ship my pc from China to Houston in two days. That's one nice thing about being in Houston. If I order a PC from Dell, they make it at the Round Rock plant (which I've seen, it's very sleek) and if I order a server from HP, they make it at the Houston plant (which I've also seen, it's ENORMOUS).

Maybe there are problems getting components from China to Houston, but once the thing is built... the shipping NEVER gets messed up.

On top of that, this is a merger. Mergers are always tougher than they look, especially when there are language barriers. All of these operations support systems will be in chaos for a few months while the teams figure out how to work together. Once they figure that out, they need to figure out a strategy for winning the market. There is a saying in IT that "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" which is shorthand for IBM is considered a good brand. Lenovo may or may not benefit from the IBM brand, we'll have to see how symbiotic the post-acquisition relationship is between IBM and LENOVO.

All of those things, however, and not things that I have to say about the acquisition. They are more like statements of the obvious or near obvious, akin to "in the future we will all be older."

The only thought on this matter which may be somewhat more original is that I hope that the Lenovo advertising is better than the IBM advertising. On this front, I feel very optimistic. First of all, it would be hard not to do better than the IBM's marketing which on its best days manages to be merely ineffective rather than astoundingly insulting (I couldn't find a link but remember those ads for Tivolli where it said "Can you see it?" and the supposed IT person was standing on the roof a building with their eyes closed and a smug look on their face? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Am I supposed to be this smug individual? That dude is too skinny and well-rested to be a REAL IT person! Does IBM want me to close my eyes and imagine that this software MIGHT work? SHOW ME! Why are you standing on the roof you stupid, lazy, fashion model pretending to be an IT person! If you were an IT Person, you'd better be installing a wireless bridge on the roof, otherwise YOU ARE JUST WASTING COMPANY TIME!). Second of all, Lenovo already seems to understand that I want the vendor to stop wasting time and just show me the merchandise, which should sell itself. Of course, a simple PDF with the tech specs would have been better, but at least the heart is in the right place.

Better advertising from vendors is one of those things that makes my life better.