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Lenovo to split into Lenovo Business Group and Think Business Group, effective in April
Lenovo's done pretty well since its acquisition of IBM's personal computer business in 2005, but in an internal e-mail earlier today, CEO Yang Yuanqing admitted that despite some attempt, the Lenovo brand is still only playing well in the mainstream and low-end markets; whereas the Think brand is his company's best asset in the high-end market, and that it is the only brand that can compete with Apple in the high-end market. For the sake of better brand positioning and better efficiency, Yang announced in the same e-mail that his company will split into two new groups: Lenovo Business Group (LBG) and Think Business Group (TBG). Effective from April 1st, LBG will be headed by Senior Vice President (Mobile Internet Digital Home) Liu Jun to focus on mainstream consumer and business desktops, laptops, and tablets, as well as smartphones and smart TVs. On the other side of the fence, TBG will be led by Senior Vice President (Product Group) Dr. Peter Hortensius to better establish the business-friendly Think brand in the consumer market, as well as continuing to stay ahead of the game in the global commercial business. Yang also pointed out that the recently created enterprise business team and workstation team will be part of TBG. It'll be a while before we see the fruit of Lenovo's restructure, but it'll sure be interesting to come back to this in a year's time. Alas, we're now further away from ever seeing a ThinkPhone.
Lenovo setting up a specialist unit for tablets and smartphones
How far we've come. It was only a couple of years ago that Lenovo was closing a deal to sell its mobile phone business, but a quick re-acquisition in late 2009 and some recent heavy flirtation with the tablet form factor have led to the creation of a whole new unit in the company's hierarchy, one dedicated to the development of smartphones, tablets, TVs, and other internet-connected devices. Headed up by Liu Jun and working out of Beijing, this squad of designers and engineers will focus on harnessing the "tremendous growth potential of the mobile internet." Cloud computing will be a major feature of Lenovo's plans moving forward, which places its goals for the future right in line with just about everyone else's. Still, it's good to see one of the big desktop computing players diversifying its portfolio with gusto.
Lenovo promises LePad Android tablet for the end of the year
Liu Jun, Senior VP and President of Lenovo's Consumer Business Group, has revealed his company's intention to deliver an Android tablet by the end of this year. To be known as LePad, this apparent resurrection of the Skylight / U1 Hybrid R&D effort seems destined to follow LePhone in seeking its fortunes in China first before expanding out to the rest of the world. Lenovo's chairman did recently note that Apple's relative inaction toward mainland China creates opportunities for others, so this may well represent the IdeaPad maker's play for that burgeoning market. Of course, we'd love to be wrong and see a simultaneous release around the world -- it's about time the iPad got some legitimate competition in the slate realm.
