Lenovo Set To Close $2.1 Billion Server Deal With IBM 49
An anonymous reader writes Lenovo has announced that it will be closing the acquisition deal of IBM's x86 server business on October 1. The closing purchase price is lower than the $2.3 billion announced in January because of a change in the valuation of inventory and deferred revenue liability, Lenovo said. Roughly $1.8 billion will be paid in cash and the remainder in stock. Lenovo says it had "big plans" for the enterprise market. "We will compete vigorously across every sector, using our manufacturing scale, and operational excellence to repeat the success we have had with PCs," the company added.
Server Admins Everywhere are Saying... (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, you're getting a Dell!
Re:Server Admins Everywhere are Saying... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, you're getting Chinese spyware!
Re:Server Admins Everywhere are Saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, of course, is a nice complement to the existing American spyware.
Re:Server Admins Everywhere are Saying... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the near future, there's gonna be a "War Games" happening inside every fucking hardware component of our systems. Over 50% of the energy will be wasted on spyware fighting each other, 45% will be waste heat, 4% will be wasted by non-military tracking by Google/Facebook/etc and only 1% of the energy will go toward actually doing something useful.
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Since the NSA is modifying Cisco and fell hardware to spy on people I am buying all computing hardware from Russia.
Fun Question (Score:2)
Fun question - who would you rather have spying on you? The NSA or the Chinese?
Personally I would rather have the Chinese spy on me because I never go there, and am not too worried about them shipping me off to prison on trumped up chargers because I disagree with whatever government is in power. The NSA on the other hand....
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I'm screwed. I live in one and travel to the other on a fairly regular basis.
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Fun question - who would you rather have spying on you? The NSA or the Chinese?
Personally I would rather have the Chinese spy on me because I never go there, and am not too worried about them shipping me off to prison on trumped up chargers because I disagree with whatever government is in power. The NSA on the other hand....
You've neglected an obvious problem. All that "useless" information on the decadent Americans is highly marketable. The NSA would gladly pay the Chinese to have a look at it.
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Dude, you've been getting Chinese spyware!
Re:Server Admins Everywhere are Saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
The old IBM THinkbooks used to be built like a tank, but a Lenovo one today, is so much plastic, I had loose USB ports, etc.
I'm guessing the servers will get the same "cheapening" over process.
A former poster is right...might as well look to get a Dell, and at least not worry about Chinese spyware in addition to the cheaper construction quality.
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at least not worry about Chinese spyware
Considering the reality of the manufacturing and supply chain of *all* the vendors, there isn't a scenario where you are justified in not worrying on that score. The nationality of the CEO doesn't really help or hurt the ability of intelligence agencies to infiltrate product development and manufacturing.
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I agree with that sentiment. As far as business laptops go, Thinkpad went from the best laptop you could possibly buy (especially their 'p' models) to a sub-average brand that gets beat by both Dell and HP. Of course, Lenovo, Dell, and HP all make shitty consumer versions in their race to the bottom. Now, Mac has the clear premium laptop crown and it does not look like anyone is close to catching up.
It sucks to see a company buy a brand and to know their full intention is to ride that brand into a lower qua
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Why do you think that the Chinese manufacturing employed by Lenovo or Dell is any better or worse than the Chinese manufacturing employed by IBM?
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Dude, you're getting Chinese spyware!
Every Lenovo is equipped with a backdoor in the BIOS. You're getting Chinese hackers AND spyware!
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Chinese backdoors, American security profiling AND Russian hackers all rolled into a single, easy-to-use unit? Sign me up!
IBM is dying (Score:1)
IBM is dying and Netcraft doesn't have to confirm it. IBM, once the great manufacturers of computer systems has become a ghetto of cheap sub-par IT labor services.
Re:IBM is dying (Score:4, Funny)
Are you calling them Incompetent Bullshit Managers?
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wtf does ibm even do that is relevant anymore.
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They're useful for the Wisconsin Organization Of Spacemodeling Hobbyists.
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I'm sorry, that reference went right over my head...
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Both IBM and Oracle are introducing the latest and greatest in truly non-migratable legacy software. IBM and Oracle are both neck and neck in developing the largest locked-in IT budget footprint and most proprietary upgrade path. We'll see who wins this eventually - but right now, it's nice to see that the cost per user has never been higher. It's an exciting time to be in the last best thing!
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Re:IBM is dying (Score:5, Insightful)
Which they did purposefully. They saw the overcompetitive desktop market of 10 years ago, and went "oh well, hardware's doomed" and moved exclusively into a different overcompetive field, one where being a large corporation is actually a hindrance. The Lenovo spinoff actually created a moderately profitable long-term sustainable company.
Re:IBM is dying (Score:5, Informative)
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IBM's core enterprise markets aren't exactly overcompetitive.
- Itanic is all but dead, and was always a distant third ahead of x86, but far, far behind POWER and SPARC on the high-end and upper-midrange tiers.
- DB2, while a distant second behind Oracle in the enterprise DBMS market is slightly ahead of MS SQL, and the market effectively has only 3 major players.
- As far as their midleware stack goes, until Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, IBM was the only vendor able to provide a full, single-vendor stack
Competition need not be apples to apples... (Score:2)
The 'topmost tiers' are threatened by other tiers, even when they are not direct replacements. Workload might not have another viable closed-source DB or Unix player or Mainframe platform to move to, but many of those workloads are moving out of those tiers entirely instead. On the flip side, you don't see a lot of workload living happily outside of IBM's wheelhouse eager to jump in. The signs all suggest that IBM's most believable favorable outcome is slowing the erosion rather than capturing a lot of n
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Yup. a ghetto of money-printing mainframes, application servers, supercomputers and cheap sub-par IT labor services.
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IBM, however, will still hold on to its System z mainframes, Power Systems, Storage Systems, Power-based Flex servers, PureApplication and PureData appliances.
Are they holding on because they still make a profit on those lines? Or because they can't unload them? I suspect the latter.
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As someone whose company supports mainframes indirectly, I'd suspect both.
Re:IBM is dying (Score:4)
The mainframe market is VERY lucrative.
Re:IBM is dying (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM's stated goal is to ditch the low end commodity business and invest in high end high touch business. i.e. custom solutions provide by consultants and custom hardware. IBM has been shedding their commodity business for years. When Lenovo bought their desktop / laptop business – servers where not commodities. Now the x86 servers are – so away they go.
Re:IBM is dying (Score:5, Interesting)
cite [forbes.com]
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The problem with those things is that they require thought and judgement, which if they ever existed in the students, the B-schools expunge. Simple-minded "numerical" analysis is what they emphasize. Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
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"Hollowing Out" is a valid concern, but let me make an argument on being "stuck in the middle".
One can either thrive by either being a low cost provided or by differentiation. If you go the low cost route, you squeeze every penny out of production and thus tend to offer generic products. If you go the differentiation route you get to charge premium prices but you also have to offer more expensive custom products. Wal-Mart or Sacks. Companies that try to do both tend to failure miserable at both.
http://en.wi [wikipedia.org]
Time will tell... (Score:3)
Minecraft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like this was a real deal considering Microsoft just paid MORE for Mojang.
Le-no-no (Score:2)
They should sell out to the French so the name works as this is more relevant to the business model. We had a vendor trying to get us to go with their desktops. We are now stuck with 3 of them in our network. They use weird proprietary parts such as a goofy non-standard ATX power supplies that run the power connectors for SATA off of the motherboard boards. Proprietary garbage. These servers will prove to be even more of that BS.
Brings new meaning to the phrase (Score:5, Funny)
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
burning living room furniture (Score:2)
This is burning the living room furniture. Running the server and personal computer business is profitable for Lenovo, IBM could have itself made it profitable as well if it was so inclined. Whats left of IBM? A few aging mainframe platforms that are on decline and serve an increasingly small niche market
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Wrong, no big profits in commodity crap, x86 servers have been a problem in IBM financials.
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then why would lenovo want to spend so much money on something that is worthless?
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for the same reason your local dollar store has crappy chinese tools for $1 each