Channel to fill services void, as Lenovo-IBM x86 deal closes

On the eve of sealing its historic purchase of the IBM x86 server business, Lenovo Australia executives have told CRN of the opportunities for its channel partners.

Tony Smith, Enterprise Business Group director for Lenovo ANZ, told CRN that the long-anticipated x86 deal will be effective Wednesday and machines will be shipped in Australia under the Lenovo brand from Monday.

"For our partners, they'll now have a broader breadth of solutions that they can resell, and allows new opportunities," said Smith. "It allows us to go for greater market share in enterprise, as well as cloud computing and data centres."

Lenovo ANZ managing director Matt Codrington told CRN that Lenovo does not have a large services division of its own compared to other vendors, so opportunities are ample for partners to add value to counter the ever tighter margins in hardware.

Codrington said that the company's stated aim of having its enterprise business more profitable than the PC business within one year is "very realistic".

"We have the largest relationship with Intel and Microsoft globally," said Codrington. "We're expanding the channel base [with the x86 acquisition]. By using the channel we'll be driving scale."

As reported by CRN earlier this month, Lenovo's server business rose 63 percent in revenue even before the IBM deal was closed. In the same survey IBM saw its server sales fall.

When asked about channel feedback about poor warranty and dead-on-arrival service, Codrington admitted to issues in that area with the PC business.

"Yes, we have had a number of challenges," Codrington told CRN. "But we've worked to minimise the impact and we as move forward we won't have [those issues]."

Codrington was careful to point out that the past service problems have been on the PC side, rather than the enterprise server business. Both Codrington and Smith said that the enterprise side would see a "seamless" transition for partners and customers.

"On the server side there has been no change in the last 12 months. We've always had a quality focus," said Smith. "Quality of supplier, quality of components, and quality of supply chain systems – we've ensured quality from the beginning so that we reduce the need for intervention later down the supply chain."

Codrington said that Lenovo is aiming for a "smooth integration of employees" in addition to minimising impact on customers and partners. But the vendor will hit the ground running after x86 deal.

"We are ambitious with our geographic reach, efficiency and scale. We want to peak from day one in every sector."