Lenovo takes its AMD partnership worldwide
Vendor also unveils plans to launch own-branded line of desktops and notebooks for SME sector
Lenovo has decided to expand its limited relationship with chip maker AMD into a worldwide alliance.
Chinese company Lenovo, which took over IBM’s PC and notebook lines last year, has been working with AMD in China over the past two years. The new deal will see Lenovo offer AMD-based commercial PCs on a global scale, starting with the UK, US, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. AMD-based systems currently account for more than half of Lenovo’s sales in China.
Steve Petracca, vice-president of Lenovo, said: “Our customers in China have already seen the benefits of what our two companies can accomplish together. This is an opportunity to offer more choice to our customers worldwide.
“With AMD processors, we’re able to meet demand among commercial users who are looking for simplified, affordable computing. This allows small-business customers to focus on the parts of their business operations that they need to, instead of worrying about their computer systems.”
The decision comes as Lenovo announced its first own-branded line of desktops and notebooks for the SME market, as revealed by CRN online last week.
Until now, Lenovo has built only re-badged IBM ThinkPads and PCs. The new low-cost Lenovo 3000 range will be divided into the C Series notebooks and J Series desktops. The notebooks will be powered by Intel’s Pentium M or Celeron processors. The J Series desktops will, for the first time, come with a choice of either Intel or AMD configurations. The Lenovo J105 models will feature an AMD Socket 754 board with Sempron or Athlon 64 processors.
Matthew Wilkins, senior analyst at iSuppli, said: “This is great news for AMD. It’s a high profile endorsement from the third-largest PC maker of 2005. It’s also a strong directional statement from Lenovo, saying that it may have bought IBM’s PC business, but that it is determined to stamp its own mark on the market. There is still room for another big player.
“There is little difference between notebooks now in hardware terms, since all of them are made by just seven or eight OEMs [Original Design Manufacturers]. What differentiates firms now is price and after-sales service.”
Despite the budget price tags, Lenovo is promising that the notebooks and desktops will feature many of the system management tools created by IBM. The Lenovo Care tools will allow for a one-button system recovery from crashes and simple set-up for wireless working.
>> Further reading: