Whats gonna happen when lenovo looses IBM branding rights?

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mfratt · #1 Post by **mfratt** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 6:25 pm

Im curious... I hear that Lenovo has the rights to use the IBM logo for 5 years. Whats gonna happen after that? They would surely loose a sizeable percentage of business by branding it Lenovo. Might they pay IBM more money to continue using their logo? Would they simply brand it "Thinkpad" and leave the "Lenovo" off? Im just wondering what will happen to the Thinkpad when the IBM logo is scrapped.

Perhaps IBM will, at some point in the future, return to making PCs. Obviously, they no longer have the right to use "Thinkpad" and "Thinkcenter," but I would go for an IBM laptop, with or without the Thinkpad title, over a Lenovo Thinkpad, since I have the utmost trust in IBM to make a solid product.

Im also afraid that Lenovo will begin to suck quality out of the Thinkpads in the future (in favor of profit). We havent seen it yet, I mean my X60s is as solid as any TP I've owned, but I wouldnt be surprised if we see it happen within the next few years.

What are your thoughts?

simms · #2 Post by **simms** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 10:16 pm

I think you're doing a lot of worrying over nothing. Past present and future Lenovo has made laptops for IBM. So the word isn't there, we hope the quality will be, but there are no guarantees.

asiafish · #3 Post by **asiafish** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:09 am

Everyone was paranoid about this last year, and clearly it hasn't happened yet. IBM or Lenovo makes little difference. ThinkPads change with the times, and some are better than others, but the market ultimately decides.

no_man · #4 Post by **no_man** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:24 am

... it becomes a Lenovo laptop, another name in the pool.
Thinkpad is Corporate driven, Corporate decides the fate.

DIGITALgimpus · #5 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:02 am

I wouldn't mind if IBM got back in the business. I don't think Lenovo == IBM. I personally do feel there are differences in build quality between the T43, T60 and the older T30's or A30's that I've seen. No question in my mind that things did change.

asiafish · #6 Post by **asiafish** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:08 am

I think that it has always been up and down. The T20 and 600 series were a high point, matched later by the T41, T42, while the T43 seems (for Intel Sonoma reasons, not build) to be a step back.

I've seen the same wiht the X. The X20 series were built like tanks, but the X32 I had was a bit more delicate. The X41 I use now is equal to the best of the X20 series.

Saml01 · #7 Post by **Saml01** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:10 am

LENOVO
Thinkpad

There, the future brand

Thinkpaddict · #8 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:14 am

I don't see IBM getting back into the PC market ever again. Once everybody started mass-producing budget laptops overseas and sold them at low prices, there was no incentive in it for IBM. I don't know how much corporate vs individual sales represented in percentage for IBM, and it would be interesting to know how much market share in the corporate sector they started losing to another companies. I am sure the reasons for their withdrawal had a lot of factors involved, but it boiled down to it not being profitable enough. It's tough to be competitive and get a good profit margin when you still want to maintain the prestige of your brand (therefore, preventing you from selling Dell crap).

snife · #9 Post by **snife** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 1:50 pm

Perhaps IBM will, at some point in the future, return to making PCs. Obviously, they no longer have the right to use "Thinkpad" and "Thinkcenter," but I would go for an IBM laptop, with or without the Thinkpad title, over a Lenovo Thinkpad, since I have the utmost trust in IBM to make a solid product.

Sorry but that statement is ludicrous - EVERYONE that designed and supported think products moved to Lenovo so the only way you get a product that you have trusted in the past is to buy a think branded product - if IBM ever made PCs again (they won't btw) then it would be with a completely new and unexperienced team and it would most likely not be able to compete with design and quality of those more experienced

I wouldn't mind if IBM got back in the business. I don't think Lenovo == IBM. I personally do feel there are differences in build quality between the T43, T60 and the older T30's or A30's that I've seen. No question in my mind that things did change.

Same thing here - IBM getting back in the business would not benefit anyone and there should be questions in your mind as things did not change and anything you have experienced with T43 and T60 not being as good is purely coincience. Only now are things starting to change but, fortunately, ThinkPads are unaffected by these changes for the moment other than aftersales support which might begin to be.

Im also afraid that Lenovo will begin to suck quality out of the Thinkpads in the future (in favor of profit). We havent seen it yet, I mean my X60s is as solid as any TP I've owned, but I wouldnt be surprised if we see it happen within the next few years.

Why? these sort of comments always annoy me as condemming ThinkPads before anything is wrong will lead people not to buy them and jeopordize the future of them. There would be no sense in reducing the quality and becoming like every other PC on the market - this is what the Lenovo 3000 equipment is intended to compete with

Anyway - the question at hand - I don't think a final decision has been made yet but they will not pay IBM to extend use of the IBM logo (it has been less than 2 years and the agreement is for 5 but the logo will change before that). The new logo will be the ThinkPad boot logo, they have actually used it on the ThinkPads on recent posters and TV adverts instead of the IBM logo; the only point of contention is wheter is says ThinkPad or maintains the current layout of the logo and says ThinkPad (where IBM currently is) by Lenovo (where ThinkPad currently is)

MobileGuru · #10 Post by **MobileGuru** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:36 pm

DIGITALgimpus wrote:I wouldn't mind if IBM got back in the business. I don't think Lenovo == IBM. I personally do feel there are differences in build quality between the T43, T60 and the older T30's or A30's that I've seen. No question in my mind that things did change.

I don't know where this sentiment would be coming from, as the entire development, engineering and support team that made ThinkPads what they are today moved over in the re-org, so the same plants, parts and people make them today that did a year ago. No offense, but the A3 and T3 boxes were absolute junk compared to the newer T4 and up models (especially the T3) IMHO. Now, go farther back to the 770 and 600 models, and you had some nice machines for their era.

MG.

DIGITALgimpus · #11 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:40 pm

MobileGuru wrote:I don't know where this sentiment would be coming from, as the entire development, engineering and support team that made ThinkPads what they are today moved over in the re-org, so the same plants, parts and people make them today that did a year ago. No offense, but the A3 and T3 boxes were absolute junk compared to the newer T4 and up models (especially the T3) IMHO. Now, go farther back to the 770 and 600 models, and you had some nice machines for their era.

MG.

Doesn't matter... just small "cost saving" moves are all it takes.

You know many at Sony's R&D have been there for years... but Sony of today is nothing like Sony of 15 years ago.

It doeesn't take much to degrade quality. It's not always even design related. It's often implementation.

snife · #12 Post by **snife** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:43 pm

MobileGuru wrote:No offense, but the A3 and T3 boxes were absolute junk compared to the newer T4

I agree, I was not a fan of the T30 and felt that the T40 (and now the T60) are a fantastic improvement over these boxes.

The A30 I am torn on as I love the idea but the implementation was not too great - I keep hoping the A series will come back as a 17" thinkpad with dual optical and raid using the origami concept (not the MS one!) that floated around but no luck yet

jamesdin · #13 Post by **jamesdin** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:10 pm

Very interesting thread.

mattbiernat · #14 Post by **mattbiernat** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 1:19 am

snife wrote:
Anyway - the question at hand - I don't think a final decision has been made yet but they will not pay IBM to extend use of the IBM logo (it has been less than 2 years and the agreement is for 5 but the logo will change before that). The new logo will be the ThinkPad boot logo, they have actually used it on the ThinkPads on recent posters and TV adverts instead of the IBM logo; the only point of contention is wheter is says ThinkPad or maintains the current layout of the logo and says ThinkPad (where IBM currently is) by Lenovo (where ThinkPad currently is)

why not pay for the IBM logo? I mean IBM still owns a huge share of the company and the IBM team is still working on the current thinkpads. IBM has very good pc image... and i just don't see why not keep the logo?

#15 Post by **BillMorrow** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:51 am

so far, so good..

the rest is, IMO:

meaningless idle speculation..

MobileGuru · #16 Post by **MobileGuru** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:15 pm

I think we'll see Lenovo break away from IBM branding sooner than the 5 year mark. Its closing in on the time where Lenovo stands up on it's own without help or hinderance from IBM and goes it's own road. After all, they bought the name ThinkPad, not IBM, in the deal for the PC business. It's gone from the Bios, I would assume soon to be gone from the box, and hopefully in the next little while totally gone from the business strategy.

Regards.

MG.

christopher_wolf · #17 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:44 pm

As a side note, IBM probably won't get back into the PC business as a stand-alone PC-maker; not only is it, literally, an attack of the clones out there from other manufacturers, but the majority of the consumer populace don't really align too much with the Professional aspects of the Thinkpad line. What Lenovo would like to do is to make it more popular through an innovative application of newer models and a certain degree of "mix/match" when it comes to designing the next iteration of longer standing Thinkpad series lines. Should all go well, they will end up in a sweeter position than either Sony or HP which have already been trying such things; but Sony tried it from the decidedly opposite end of the stick as they have been trying to make "media" based systems, their strongpoint, integrate better into a line of smaller/slimline laptops that business and professional travellers will take to using. The advantage that Lenovo has is that they already have a legendary line of laptops, the Thinkpads. So, in theory, it should be straightforward, not necessarily easier mind you, to adapt such professional systems to the media/consumer aspect of the mobile computing market; which, frankly, is probably a far better plan than going from a media/consumer-oriented laptop background to a professional/business-oriented line of laptops with excellent robustness.

JohnDrake · #18 Post by **JohnDrake** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:57 pm

The IBM logo will probably go away ahead of the 5 yr mark, or at least "shrink" in reference to Lenovo....

They are trying to build the brand...

Whats gonna happen when lenovo looses IBM branding rights?

Whats gonna happen when lenovo looses IBM branding rights?

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