March 7, 2006

Differentiating Lenovo and ThinkPad Branded Notebooks

I wondered how Lenovo would differentiate its Lenovo and ThinkPad branded notebooks and now I have the answer. Lenovo tells me that ThinkPad products will remain the product of choice for Large Enterprise and Mid-Sized Enterprise customer who are seeking the high-end product line. The Lenovo 3000 machines meet the specific business needs and budgets of small businesses, and very small businesses.

Many small businesses use information technology like large enterprises do. For them, there is the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre. The Lenovo 3000 products are for small businesses without IT managers, who want a reliable PC at a great value that they don't have to worry about.

With the Lenovo 3000 products, Lenovo helps small business and individuals achieve their work and personal goals by providing them exciting, affordable and worry-free PCs. On the other hand you have the Think Family. With Think PCs, Lenovo helps customers succeed by providing them a smarter way to be more productive with the highest levels of quality, reliability and security.

I think at the end of the day its about price. Like car companies Lenovo can have one line with lower prices and probably changing internal components and support offerings, while the ThinkPads will be premium and have components that stay the same longer for large enterprise needs.

In some ways I think this is a fine solution but on the other end, I wonder if Lenovo should have kept ONE notebook line and simply had different price structures and offerings, as IBM had done with the R, T, X series.

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