Lenovo & Customer Perception

music_lover writes "According to this article, Lenovo is losing current ThinkPad series customers to HP, Toshiba and other notebook vendors because of customer perception. Apparently, customers don't feel comfortable purchasing from a Chinese PC manufacturer now that the ThinkPad brand isn't supported by IBM anymore. Could this really be perception? Quote: "Despite the overall poor performance, Lenovo has still not gained the mindshare or the respect that the ThinkPads command. In fact, it has, to some extent, alienated ThinkPad's fans and taken a sales hit. In my immediate vicinity, those who owned ThinkPads have now traded up to an HP or a Toshiba. None of them went back to their ThinkPads. After asking for a clarification, I was told, "Who wants to buy things from a Chinese company?" That said, our corporate parent has continued to buy/use Thinkpads; the ones that I've seen do just fine, and they've added new machines and a parternership with AMD.

Re:Quality still as good?

[dreemernj]

Yes, but not me personally. We have a few laptops at our office that are for general use and have been using thinkpads since they came with P166s. As a matter of fact those P166s are still here and running and have had no problems (aside from defective user errors) since we got them. But, then we got a couple of Lenovo Thinkpad X41s and aside from the poor performance for the money the things were built like eMachines. And not even todays eMachines, eMachines circa 1998. Now we have HPs.

No change of perception

[CUGWMUI]

Lenovo may have taken over the Thinkpad business from IBM, but the quality of the laptops continues to be the same. Lenovo (and IBM too), ensured that their large corporate customers continue to stick by the brand, and thats where the large sales volumes and bulk contracts come from. If there is a drop in sales to individual customers, its probably because the other laptops aren't "bland, boring machines" like Thinkpads, from a visual perspective as well as from a features perspective.

I know my company is still sticking to Thinkpads.. for the time being atleast.

Lenovo vs. HP

[Dethboy]

I'd buy another Thinkpad. I got a Z60 in December - so far the only problem I've had was a missing power cord for the docking station. I called and was promptly drop shipped a new cable.

In contrast - I've had two HP's that I've had to ship back - one took 2 weeks to return, was still broken when I got it back - shipped it again - waited another two weeks, got it back again still broken, then a day later I got a 'new' refurbished laptop in the mail - no explanation.

Jim

Re:Quality still as good? - Or as bad?

[Herschel Cohen]

I own a IBM T-30 that under really light use developed two cracks in the case. The crappy Gateway I leased and hauled around everywhere for over two years only developed one case crack. Moreover, the latter had hard use.

The only positive comment is that the IBM unit is still technically useful running Linux, whereas the Gateway with the then new Windows 95 ceased to have any utility to me a full six months prior to the lease expiration - and I was doing Windows type custom coding for clients at that time.

Lenovo is good stuff

[toogreen]

Hey I've been living in China for more than 3 years now, and I know a bit about computer brands and stuff. It's a total misconception because Lenovo is BY FAR the best Chinese brand for computers and laptop here. It's considered by many of pretty good quality. My girlfriend has a Lenovo branded laptop, and It's good enough! Better than many HP/Toshiba I've seen before...

It's not like nothing good can come out of China...

Re:Lenovo = Legend Systems = Packard Bell

[Aphrika]

"Basically the Thinkpad is rebranded Packard Bell"

Ah sorry, that's not true.

Packard bell are owned by NEC, and Lenovo used to be known as Legend. They are not the same company, nor linked. However, they may use the same ODMs (Original Design Manufacturers) for some of their kit - IIRC the 3000 series Lenovo is made by Compal who also makes a lot of the HP kit.

However, the Thinkpad range has always been manufactured by Quanta. They also make laptops for Sony and Dell and are well respected in the industry, along with other top-tier ODMs like Celestica, Flextronics and Wistron.

Re:Perception

[forgotten_my_nick]

> There is a difference between buying a laptop from a
> company where the profits of the entire laptop sale
> itself go to the company vs. the profits of the
> entire laptop sale go to the Chinese government.

Err, what are you on about? Lenovo is not owned by the Chinese government, nor does its profits go to the Chinese government (least nothing over and beyond what IBM would of had to pay when they owned them).

Your bosses seem a bit thick.

Re:Don't Know Lenovo

[Jim Hall]

I'm going to wait and see what other customers have to say. That said if I were in the market for a laptop right now I'd heavily consider Lenovo because Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, et al have all already proven themselves to be inferior products.

IBM and Lenovo are still tight business partners. For example, at the end of March, I met with my IBM sales rep to review projects coming up over the next 12 months. As an aside, half-jokingly, I mentioned in that timeframe I'd also buy a new laptop ... and if he knew of any new ThinkPads coming out, let me know. Heh heh.

The next day I got a call from a Lenovo rep, who had spoken with my IBM rep. She said she heard I was interested in Lenovo Thinkpads, and would I like to test-drive a new model that recently came out? Hell, yes.

I've been running a Thinkpad T60 laptop since the start of April. Of course, I'm running Linux on it. [umn.edu] It's a great laptop. Titanium body, magnesium-allow cover, integrated wireless, ... It's even Intel Core Duo! At the end of the month, it's going to be hard to go back to my Thinkpad R40 (ABS plastic body & cover, single-core CPU, etc.)

Still, if you're waiting to see what other customers have to say, I'd suggest getting a model that uses the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video (which is natively supported by x.org). So far, ipw3945-0.0.74-4.rhfc5.at seems to provide stable wireless networking, so I guess the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG integrated wireless is okay.

The end of the ThinkPad

[dozer]

I bought a ThinkPad i1452 in 1999. IBM took it back once under warranty to clean cat hairs out of the keyboard (oops) and once, OUT OF WARRANTY, to replace a still-working but loose power connector. No hassles; I just call them up, spend 10 minutes on the phone, a shipping container arrives the next day, and I have a working laptop back within a week. Beautiful.

My roommate just bought an X41. The hardware is beautiful but the software that it shipped with is insanely buggy. She spent a day applying all the updates. Click update, click yes, reboot, click update, click yes, reboot reboot reboot. At the end of that, the laptop still throws up random error dialogs about hard disk issues and the CD-ROM drive is really flaky. She spent 4 hours on the phone with Lenovo over the weekend. Lenovo told her to run the entire diagnostic regimen (takes over 12 hours). No errors. Then they told her to wipe the hard drive and recover from the recovery partition. And then go through another day of update hell. She hasn't done that yet -- the laptop is sitting unused while she tries to find time to hassle with it again.

Lenovo seems to think that it's acceptable to charge her almost $2500 for a laptop and then burn over TWO DAYS of her time trying to get working software on this thing. IBM would have fixed it or replaced it and ensured she has a laptop that actually works. If she wanted to repair her own laptop, she would have bought an Asus.

I've bought and recommended ThinkPads since 1999. No more. Does anybody have any recommendations for a ThinkPad replacement? A company that makes solid laptops and stands behind them 100%?

Re:"Who wants to buy things from a Chinese company

[Stonent1]

The funny thing is, if you go to Lenovo's site, the first picture you see is a Thinkpad with an IBM logo on it.

Poor Service

[moankey]

While the machines may be manufactured from the same place, I had to call for my offices recently for an invoice on a particular Thinkpad requested by the CFO. After being transferred to half a dozen people over the course of about 4 hours and providing the serial number and model number it was something they could not figure out or do for me. Apparently a request like this was never made before and baffled their customer, technical service, and sales.

Whereas when it was IBM run, it would have taken 1 call and 10 minutes.

Re:Wait a minute...

[gnuyarlathotep]

Fujitsu Lifebooks are still made in Japan. I have one, it's fantastic, but my goodness you pay for it.

Re:Perception

[muyuubyou]

> There is a difference between buying a laptop from a
> company where the profits of the entire laptop sale
> itself go to the company vs. the profits of the
> entire laptop sale go to the Chinese government.

Err, what are you on about? Lenovo is not owned by the Chinese government, nor does its profits go to the Chinese government (least nothing over and beyond what IBM would of had to pay when they owned them).

Your bosses seem a bit thick.

Reality check: Lenovo IS government owned.

Re:Perception

[WhiteWolf666]

The lines between Government owned, Government supported, and Private enterprise is _very_ blurry in China.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/sep/15bspec.htm [rediff.com]

I do think that the U.S. government should retaliate against China's "no one may own more than 49% of a Chinese company" policy. On the other hand, the macroeconomist inside me tells me that is a stupid position.

*shrug*. . . . Who knows? I do know that the Chinese domestic market is far from a fair one.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Luscious868]

As others have pointed out, the Chinese goverment has a majority stake in the company. While that doesn't make it 100% owned by the Chinese goverment, they have enough of a stake in the company that people ought to be aware of it.

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

But with Lenovo's purchase, the design and decision making would likely move from US engineers and designers and to Lenovo's.

The Thinkpad design team has been based in Japan for about seven years now, I believe. Lenovo has stated since day one that they have no plans to change the design process. IBM also has the support contract on Lenovo PC's for something like 10 years, so service and support should also be non-issues.

Re:misconception

[Kadin2048]

This is true, however it seems as though Lenovo is slowly cutting those people and moving the design jobs over to China as well.

The short story is in this article, Lenovo cuts jobs in restructuring push [zdnet.com]: In short, they've dumped the US design teams for their desktop line, but retained the Thinkpad people (based in N.C.). However if I was working there, I think I'd be either polishing my resume or taking a Berlitz course in Cantonese.

If their marketshare in the US continues to slip, it's not hard to imagine that they'll cut the design teams here (which are probably expensive to operate, versus having a few people on the payroll in an office they already own in Hong Kong) and retreat to the Chinese domestic market. That's pretty much what they've already done with the desktop lineup; if, given a year or so, they don't make up the lost ground to Dell and HP with notebooks, I could see it happening there as well.

Re:Perception

[forgotten_my_nick]

> Reality check: Lenovo IS government owned.

No its not. They have 27% shares in it. Thats all.

Real data about Chinese Gov. ownership of Lenovo

[Kevin143]

Lenovo is partly owned by the government. Lenovo was founded as a branch of from a government think tank and as a result, the Chinese government owns about 10% of Lenovo through the Chinese National Academy of the Sciences.