Google sells Motorola to Lenovo

[Puppy]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/29/53586 ... rom-google

[Saucey]

Hmmmmm. Interesting. I wonder if Lenovo will make Motorola phones profitable then...

[Puppy]

Hard to say. I consider Android as low-cost crap "system" with no security.

[Summilux]

I thought about coming here upon learning the news...
"What? Motorola is sold to Lenovo?! Oh no... why do they have to destroy everything that falls into their hands???"

So, comrades, let's see if Lenovo will set the Moto X line on the path of the Lenovo-isation course, as we've seen with our beloved Thinkpads

[QWERTY Andreas]

I thought about coming here upon learning the news...
"What? Motorola is sold to Lenovo?! Oh no... why do they have to destroy everything that falls into their hands???"

So, comrades, let's see if Lenovo will set the Moto X line on the path of the Lenovo-isation course, as we've seen with our beloved Thinkpads

The main difference between "before" and "after" the Thinkpads move to Lenovo is that the thinkpads is now making profit. And here is a secret: Profit is acutally pretty important, when running a business

[ansible212]

Interesting analysis on the Inquirer:

So this leaves the players in a rather bizarre, but positive situation. Google, the company that sold Motorola for $9 billion less than it paid for it is in fact a winner, as its patent leverage has allowed it not only to forge strategic alliances, but bring back Samsung into line. Motorola is a winner as it has a future as part of a major electronics manufacturer with ambition, and has patent agreements in place that will make its legal troubles go away. And Lenovo is a winner because it is getting an established brand to take into major western markets and gain a foothold to give other mobile manufacturers a run for their money.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/fea ... -to-lenovo

[Puppy]

The main difference between "before" and "after" the Thinkpads move to Lenovo is that the thinkpads is now making profit.

Are there any numbers what profit makes these .30 and .40 T/W/X models ? I guess that the most of the profit is made by consumer line IdeaPad and mobile phones.

[lophiomys]

IMHO the greatest benefit in the sturdy, trusty, "classic" Thinkpad models
is the image value gained by their use in the field.

Newer Thinkpads do not fly to the space station, nor are they used by NASA engineers,
as we have seen in a photograph recently somewhere on a blog.
This are MacBook Pros today, because these are flashy AND reliable (combination of good HW and SW).
Shiny TV spots and fancy actors wont help Lenovo in the long run.

I am convinced, that building a really good Classic Thinkpad T and X model every three years,
would not cost them much - compare this to the cost of advertisement and sports sponsoring -
but would earn Lenovo a lot of reputation.

And additionally, there is always the opportunity to earn good money, if big corporations will discover
the value of a reliable piece of hardware again.

[Summilux]

The main difference between "before" and "after" the Thinkpads move to Lenovo is that the thinkpads is now making profit. And here is a secret: Profit is acutally pretty important, when running a business

What does this have to do with designing proper devices?

[QWERTY Andreas]

What does this have to do with designing proper devices?

The fact that the older designs didn't make any Money. I don't know if it is because of the marketing, or because they was too expensive. Maybe because they was too focused on business?

Noone can say it exactly. But the truth is, that the newer thinkpads is making more profit. Wether we like it or not.

I am convinced, that building a really good Classic Thinkpad T and X model every three years,
would not cost them much - compare this to the cost of advertisement and sports sponsoring -
but would earn Lenovo a lot of reputation.

If we take the X2/T4/520 series as "classic" thinkpads, is less than three years since we had a Classic thinkpads

On a more serious note: If it was possible, somehow, we should convince them to crowdfund one. Then they wouldn't burn a lot of Money on such a experiment - and the users would get their beloved thinkpad back And if it failed, well.. Then there is no market for it - and the users would get their Money back.
Now we just need someone, who can get in touch with Lenovo

[pianowizard]

The fact that the older designs didn't make any Money.

It's not that simple. A major factor that made the PC Division a huge money sink was that IBM spent a lot more money than Lenovo on quality check, customer service, and warranty service. Lenovo has proved that most customers actually don't care much for these things; they just want to pay one third as much for a Thinkpad. Also, millions of T4* units had GPU issues and the warranty repairs cost IBM an enormous amount of money.

[ajkula66]

Noone can say it exactly. But the truth is, that the newer thinkpads is making more profit. Wether we like it or not.

We really don't know that, do we?

All we know is that Lenovo remains profitable. Whether the ThinkPad range itself is profitable - and what parts of it - remains an open question.

On a more serious note: If it was possible, somehow, we should convince them to crowdfund one. Then they wouldn't burn a lot of Money on such a experiment - and the users would get their beloved thinkpad back And if it failed, well.. Then there is no market for it - and the users would get their Money back.
Now we just need someone, who can get in touch with Lenovo

It's been previously attempted and got nowhere. Lenovo has *zero* interest in building anything apart from what they already are - a non-classic range of ThinkPads - along with everything else that their production consists of...

[Puppy]

It's been previously attempted and got nowhere.

Any link ?

[jdk]

Not much for Lenovo to ruin. Smartphone market is a mature market. Smartphones have already been streamlined and feature-stripped for a while. No more QWERTY keyboards, no more FM transmitters, SD cards and FM radios becoming rare, no more "sleep screens" that take advantage of the AMOLED capabilities, etc. What else can Lenovo possibly remove?

Moto G is already the best deal on the market now. It's cheap, well-built, waterproof. The only way Lenovo can ruin it is by not providing timely software updates (precedence already set by how they abandoned the Android Thinkpad Tablet). We will see.

[ajkula66]

It's been previously attempted and got nowhere.

Any link ?

You remember the "15,000" IPS panels nonsense, right?

That's what I was referring to.

[Ibthink]

We really don't know that, do we?

All we know is that Lenovo remains profitable. Whether the ThinkPad range itself is profitable - and what parts of it - remains an open question.

According to this article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/ ... t?fsrc=rss ThinkPads have a margin of 5 %, which is ok for Notebooks, as far as I know, HP and Dell also hacve 5 % for most of their Notebooks, Lenovos low-end lines (Essential B and G-Series for example) only should have 2-3 %
"Some whispered that Chinese ineptitude would sink IBM’s well-regarded Think PC brand. Not so: shipments have doubled since the deal, and operating margins are thought to be above 5%."

[Cigarguy]

Lenovo, in general is profitable because it have an almost monopoly access to the Chinese market. A growing and huge market. The Chinese have always gave preferential treatment toward one of theirs. Not that I blame them, most country have this tendency.

As for the smartphone market, like Samsung, smartphones and tablets will be the growth industry for them. China Mobile alone have a subscriber base of over 700 million which is twice the population of the US. Orientals are funny buyers (with a last name of Chen I include myself in this group), they prefer to buy prestigious brands dominated by Western marketing then settle for something "Made in China". This is in contrast to their protectionist economic policy. So Lenovo buys Motorola (an established Western brand), market the heck out of it as the next "hip" thing even if it is unprofitable in the US and Western European market but this will allow them to sell boatloads of phones in their domestic market.

With regards to the Thinkpad brand, Lenovo don't care and don't need to care. Lenovo bought and got the biggest, prestigious and best known laptop brand out there. So what if the Western public and Western Corporations don't care for newer Thinkpads. They have the brand name and prestige to sell to their domestic and corporate market.....a growing, larger and more lucrative domestic market. That is why when every other PC manufacturers are losing money and downsizing, Lenovo is still making money and growing.

[Adda]

Prestige doesn't come from the brand, it comes from the product it signifies, when the product is gone, the prestige will follow.

It has happened over and over again in the audio industry, Harman international comes to mind.

[Cigarguy]

Yes I agree with you with regards to North America and Western Europe. In those markets the Thinkpad brand is only a shadow of it former self. But in the Asian market and I suspect some others, Thinkpad are still Thinkpad.

[Summilux]

The fact that the older designs didn't make any Money. I don't know if it is because of the marketing, or because they was too expensive. Maybe because they was too focused on business?

Pure conjecture.
Nobody here can tell if (1) IBM lost money on the Thinkpads and (2) what was the reason for that.
The second part being the most tricky one.

Noone can say it exactly. But the truth is, that the newer thinkpads is making more profit. Wether we like it or not.

How do you know they're making more profits? And how do you know this is chiefly due to their new design?

[Summilux]

Prestige doesn't come from the brand, it comes from the product it signifies, when the product is gone, the prestige will follow.

Yes and no. In practice, fallen big names still enjoy some fame amongst the lesser informed.
I'm sure there are still some people buying Kodak camera without knowing the brand is now a Chinese (PRC) one.

[A31]

It will be interesting to see if Lenovo's purchase of Motorola results in some new and more exciting phones from Motorola. They were very popular over here in the UK about 10 years ago, but with the birth of the smartphone and people buying from Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG instead, they really fell out of favour.

I have noticed that more and more people around me (including myself actually) have been using Nokia phones since they got purchased by Microsoft (and also since they started using Windows Phone several years ago).

It will be interesting to see if Motorola launches something competitive back onto the market again.

[RealBlackStuff]

The last time I used my cellphone was about 3 years ago!
I had it as a "pay-as-you-go", which cost me $25.- per 3-month top-up.
More often than not I lost all the money, because I didn't use the cell and/or didn't renew in time.
I even once tried a $100.- payment good for 12 month.
Near the end of those 12 months, I still had a credit-balance of nearly $80.-
So I figured I'd call it a day (literally), and let my daughter borrow my cell.
It took her only a few hours to spend the rest of that money...
She herself had some Motorolas, the last one a Razr V3, before switching over to iPhone.
I still have my (now unused and SIM-card expired) cellphone somewhere in my desk:



My wife uses the same Pantech cell.
I bought her an unlocked Samsung Captivate SGH i897, but she didn't like that and went back to the Pantech.
Anybody interested in buying this Samsung?

[Adda]

Anybody interested in buying this Samsung?

No thanks, that Samsung looks like something that needs recharging all the time, no I'm one of those people who still uses Nokia, a model 1208.
My Nokia has a phone book, it can send and receive SMS's and make calls, it even has a flashlight and an alarm clock, what more could I possibly want?
I can even replace the battery without using tools of any kind, it has already outlasted several smartphones owned by people around me, and it was much more affordable.

[Saucey]

...it has already outlasted several smartphones...

To my understanding Nokias were built and blessed by the hammer of Thor at the assembly line.
Volvos were made the same way until a decade or two ago.

[lophiomys]

IMHO the last real Volvo, was the 245, last built in 1993,
and it is alive and kicking, 3 days ago in Austria:

note the 2cm layer of ice!

[Summilux]

From Anandtech's article on the matter:

Lenovo doesn't have a history of ruining brands.

[sir_synthsalot]

I agree that the cell phone market is mature and there is not much there to ruin in the first place.

I will be steering clear of their phones though. I don't need the Chinese government spying on me in addition to Google and the NSA.