IBM regret of selling over ThinkPad?

[ThinkPad560X]

So its been 5 years now that IBM sold there notebooks aswell as the desktops and no longer makes THINKPAD and no more lables under the IBM ThinkPad logo name. So does IBM regret selling a American brand "ThinkPad" over to lenovo China in 2010 today?

I own two of the lenovo made laptops and they seem well built. IdeaPad S10 and ThinkPad SL500 Also since lenovo bought the ThinkPad-line they came down in price witch all china made stuff you seen every where is cheap compared to buying a ThinkPad when IBM owned them.

[Harryc]

So its been 5 years now that IBM sold there notebooks aswell as the desktops and no longer makes THINKPAD and no more lables under the IBM ThinkPad logo name. So does IBM regret selling a American brand "ThinkPad" over to lenovo China in 2010 today?

I own two of the lenovo made laptops and they seem well built. IdeaPad S10 and ThinkPad SL500 Also since lenovo bought the ThinkPad-line they came down in price witch all china made stuff you seen every where is cheap compared to buying a ThinkPad when IBM owned them.

What does selling the PC division to a Chinese outfit have to do with anything?. All companies are in business to make a profit, and IBM's PC (Thinkpad) division was hemorrhaging money, so they sold it. Regrets? I don't think so. By the way, many Thinkpads were built outside of the US long before the PC Division was sold.

[AMATX]

Yup, IBM was glad to dump Lenovo. Interesting that Sam Palmisano, IBM CEO, ran the pc division before he became CEO. Couldn't turn a reasonable profit(leadership?lacking), so pump it up and dump it to Lenovo. One more example of IBM existing a biz they couldn't manage properly.

Thinkpads may be better off via Lenovo, as even though there's been cost competition issues and some watering down of the product, if IBM still had it, they wouldn't put sufficient money in it to keep it going the way it should. Also worth noting that under IBM, thinkpads were over engineered and WAY over priced for what you got. Now days, a bit less engineering, but a much better value. Some of the Thinkpad stuff is actually quite good.

[Unknown_K]

Computers became a commodity sold more on price then features, IBM could not compete. Don't feel bad for them, IBM made a nice chunk of cash during their PC history and sold that division at a good time. Its not like IBM went bankrupt or anything, but they do seem to be gutting their US workforce and using people from all over the world instead.

[pianowizard]

under IBM, thinkpads were over engineered and WAY over priced for what you got. Now days, a bit less engineering, but a much better value.

Just ten years ago, ALL laptops were far more expensive than they are now. I just went to archive.org and looked up the prices of Dell Latitude laptops in April 2001. Guess how much the most basic configuration of the Latitude C600 cost -- $2,059!! The current incarnation of the C600 is the Latitude E6410, which starts from $699 and is far better built than the C600. We can't use laptop prices to gauge how quality has changed over time. Just because the IBM Thinkpad T42 (for instance) started from $2K whereas today's T410 starts from $829 doesn't mean Lenovo is cutting corners.

IBM made a nice chunk of cash during their PC history and sold that division at a good time. Its not like IBM went bankrupt or anything

The PC department was a very small component of IBM and it lost lots of money during its last few years, which was the main reason IBM sold it.

[mediasponge]

To use a quote from the automotive business, a few years ago, a Fiat executive was asked why they had no plans to return to the US market (may yet happen), and the reply was, "There are easier ways to lose money."

During a previous industry downturn, people at a company I used to work for would joke that IBM's quarterly losses were bigger than our company's entire revenue history. When IBM loses money, they do it in spectacular fashion. If they hadn't sold the product line, it would have been killed.

[ajkula66]

Although I have my (well-known to most people on this forum) gripes with Lenovo, I wouldn't say that their ThinkPads - at least R, T, W and X series which are the ones I've had a chance to use - feel cheaper than IBM's own.

From what I'm to understand, PC division was a money pit for IBM and all the innovation that we celebrate hasn't paid off in terms of dollars and cents. Extensive and (for IBM) expensive warranty coverage - at least on ThinkPads - must have been another serious downfall, when looked at from a financial standpoint.

Sure, they got almost $4,000 of my money when I bought a brand new A31p back-in-the-day. They also had on-site techs swap two screens and three motherboards on that very machine during the initial three years, and another one of each during the extended warranty period when the machine was no longer in my possession. I'm not saying that this is a typical example, but where's the profit there? Remember all the T30 planars replaced for bad DIMM slots? How about all the board swaps on T4x/R5x units worldwide? And I'm just pulling the stuff off the top of my head - people who have used ThinkPads longer than myself could certainly chime in with more of similar examples...

Whether we want to admit it or not, IBM ThinkPads were in many respects more "show" than "go", and every story of reliability has the other, darker side.

I'm certain that no one in IBM seriously mourns the sale of PC division. From a sheer business standpoint, they're much better off without it.

My $0.02 only...

[pianowizard]

George, excellent post!

I'm not saying that this is a typical example, but where's the profit there?

I could be misremembering, but I very vaguely recall that the 600/600E/600X series was one of the handful of IBM Thinkpad models that resulted in a profit. Business went downhill from there.

I'Whether we want to admit it or not, IBM ThinkPads were in many respects more "show" than "go", and every story of reliability has the other, darker side.

And of course, all other brands are likewise far from perfect. Based on recent reliability surveys, Apple laptops routinely get the highest scores, but still I often hear about friends' Macs having serious problems. Laptops in general are too unreliable for my liking. Of the 64 that I have owned, many had various issues that were quite minor but nonetheless annoying. Only one of these died in my hands, though at least four others died shortly after I sold them. Desktops aren't perfect either but compared to laptops, they tend to stay issue-free for much longer IMO. That's one of the (many) reasons that I use desktops most of the time and use laptops only when necessary.

A few examples of the above-mentioned "minor issues": sudden death of the battery (an X60s and a 600E), problem recovering from sleep mode (a Dell Inspiron 8200), the optical drive not recognizing certain discs (so many laptops had this problem that I don't even remember which ones), lid hinges becoming very loose (e.g. an Apple Powerbook G3), the wireless card occasionally failing to turn on during startup (an X40), an annoyingly loud fan (you guessed it -- a T43!), the TrackPoint sometimes not getting activated on boot (a 240X), the wireless card dropping out once in a while (a T60), and, the most common issue, the mouse pointer moving on its own (most laptops).

[ThinkPad560X]

I had the trackpoint issue on all my ThinkPads. If im scrolling around it would sometime move for awail by its self and later stop. The thing of lenovo owning the ThinkPads is its still going and there alot cheaper than from IBM, I think IBM's products are still $. I think all they sell PC wise now is Servers and sometimes see IBM cash registers. And since lenovo owns ThinkPad I could buy a new X or T series without spending over $1000 I was looking along time ago back in 2006. Are the ThinkPads cheaper in China than the US?

[Unknown_K]

The PC department was a very small component of IBM and it lost lots of money during its last few years, which was the main reason IBM sold it.

Yea but from 1984 to the early 90's the PC side probably made a mint for IBM. It took until 1994 for Compaq to push IBM out of the #1 PC maker spot. I have no idea how much IBM made on the laptop section, but from what I see their older 486-P3 line seems reliable and well built and very pricey.

[ThinkPad560X]

Didnt HP buy out Compaq and I think Acer bought emachines

[pianowizard]

Didnt HP buy out Compaq and I think Acer bought emachines

Yes. Acer also bought Packard Bell and Gateway. And the quality of Gateway computers seems to have improved a lot after the acquisition.

[Unknown_K]

Gateway stuff went down hill when they killed the gold badge Gateway2000 logo and used the green inked Gateway.

[Radioguy]

Also worth noting that under IBM, thinkpads were over engineered and WAY over priced for what you got.

The latter was true if you don't consider the warranty coverage, but I don't think the former is even possible. The bar has dropped a few rungs since then.

[twillis449]

Well, the one thing I'm sure that IBM will always regret is not buying the ownership rights to MS-DOS from one William Gates Jr !!

[ThinkPad560X]

If I remember, Apple was also wanting to join up with IBM.

[Unknown_K]

If I remember, Apple was also wanting to join up with IBM.

For a while in the 90's Apple wanted to purchased by SUN, IBM, hell just about anyone.

[ThinkPad560X]

I think IBM bought SUN now. I own a SUN SPARCstation 5 was looking up information on it when it was given to me a few years back, and found out IBM bought SUN. from what I was told it runs a operating system called solaris and don't work with Microsoft Windows.

[rkawakami]

There was some talk last year about IBM wanting to buy Sun but it didn't happen. Instead, Oracle was the one that bought out Sun. I think that the Solaris operating system is still open source (i.e., free). I put a copy of it on a T23 a couple of years ago and found it worked okay. I have a Sun Ultra 5 and an Ultra 10, both idle at the moment.

[ThinkPad560X]

So I did a bit of small reading on ThinkPads.com about lenovo buying HP PCs now like they did with the IBM in 2005. So are the HP + Compaq under HP going to be a lenovo HP or a lenovo Compaq, like they did under the ThinkPad "Lenovo IBM ThinkPad".

[ThinkRob]

So are the HP + Compaq under HP going to be a lenovo HP or a lenovo Compaq, like they did under the ThinkPad "Lenovo IBM ThinkPad".

I doubt it. Lenovo needed the IBM brand to establish itself in the US market. They've already done that now, so unless HP wants to throw in a license for their company name for free (*very* unlikely IMHO), I can't imagine that happening.

But hey, you never know...

[ThinkPad560X]

That would be kinda funny. Lenovo China owning all the American PC brands. They already own the IBM, next HP, the other would be DELL and probably never going to happen Apple.

Heres a question I'd like to ask, how would us ThinkPad lovers feel if lenovo decided to quit selling the ThinkPad brand in the US? probably may never happend, but has happend with other things. I had products I like that US made and was sold to china and kept the manufacturing and selling in china only. Kinda similer with the IBM ThinkPad S30. One Product I like and own is the 1984-2001 Jeep Cherokee XJ. Chrysler quit manufactering in 2001 and sold the model to china and they are made and sold only in china now.

[ThinkRob]

Heres a question I'd like to ask, how would us ThinkPad lovers feel if lenovo decided to quit selling the ThinkPad brand in the US? probably may never happend, but has happend with other things. I had products I like that US made and was sold to china and kept the manufacturing and selling in china only. Kinda similer with the IBM ThinkPad S30. One Product I like and own is the 1984-2001 Jeep Cherokee XJ. Chrysler quit manufactering in 2001 and sold the model to china and they are made and sold only in china now.

I can't say I'd have much of any emotional response to it. I mean... it's a laptop line. I don't really do the whole "emotional attachment to brands" thing (hence the brevity of my history with Apple.)

What would I do? I'd probably keep refurbishing old models until they were no longer an option for my day-to-day use, and then I'd switch to whatever was the next best business laptop (from a technical standpoint.) If I have to import it, I have to import it. It'd add a bit to the cost, but that's life.

[pianowizard]

I don't really do the whole "emotional attachment to brands" thing

Same here. I just buy whatever is the best that's within my budget. The Thinkpads were the best in the industry from 2002 to 2008, and so I bought almost exclusively Thinkpads. But more recently, I have found that several other brands are better and so I no longer own even one Thinkpad.

Lenovo should feel lucky that so many people are still loyal to the Thinkpad.