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 华尔街日报：IBM老将的联想机遇 |
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wanderer
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作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
IBM Veteran Sees an Opportunity With Lenovo
December 9, 2004; Page B3
Stephen M. Ward Jr., a 26-year veteran of International Business Machines Corp., suddenly has the job of turning China's Lenovo Group Ltd. into a strong and profitable No. 3 in the global computer market -- something he couldn't do with IBM's own PC business.
As a result of the agreement by Beijing-based Lenovo to acquire IBM's PC business for $1.25 billion in cash and stock, Mr. Ward, who has headed the PC operation inside IBM, will now be chief executive of a public company traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange with combined sales of about $12 billion a year and an indicated 8% market share. As part of the deal, IBM will own an 18.9% stake in Lenovo.
Mr. Ward said he plans to set up a small headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., IBM's hometown, and plans to keep IBM's PC group's 10,000 employees, including the 2,200 in the U.S.
In an interview, Mr. Ward said he expects Lenovo to continue IBM's strategy of trying to develop innovations that will persuade buyers to look at features other than low price when picking PCs. "Like any product in the world, it's commoditized until someone finds a way to make it better," he said. He said IBM has had favorable sales results with recent innovations, such as a built-in fingerprint reader for logging on to a PC and a one-button recovery feature for starting up again if a virus shuts down a PC.
But PC market leaders Dell Inc., with a 16.4% share, and Hewlett-Packard Co., with 13.9%, are already salivating at the prospects of chasing IBM's corporate customers once Lenovo takes over the business, midway through 2005. Laura Conigliaro, an analyst with Goldman Sachs & Co., which served as Lenovo's adviser on the deal, said that judging by past PC industry mergers, share loss is "inevitable." Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, predicted that Dell would pick up 45% of any business IBM lost and H-P would get 30%.
Mr. Ward said that "we won't tolerate a loss" of customers to competitors. He said "we have total commitment from IBM," whose salespeople will continue to get commissions for selling Lenovo PCs just as they do for IBM PCs. Mr. Ward said that he expects Lenovo will make more of an effort to sell through resellers and directly to quality-conscious consumers than IBM has. But he said he doesn't expect Lenovo to put the IBM PCs in retail stores -- a marketing outlet where IBM lost nearly $1 billion in 1998 before abandoning the channel. Lenovo PCs will remain in retail stores in China, where it is the No. 1 brand.
IBM itself has had a hard time turning its innovations into profits in the PC business. In documents filed in connection with the deal, Lenovo disclosed that IBM's PC business had net losses of $258 million in 2003 and $171 million in 2002. The filing said the losses were partly due to unusually high warranty costs caused by problems with an unidentified component.
Mr. Ward, 49 years old, declined to discuss the financial outlook. However, he said, "I intend to identify ways to grow this market."
Lenovo earned $135 million in its latest fiscal year, which ended March 31, and another $131 million in the first six months of its current fiscal year. Lenovo Chief Financial Officer Mary Ma said the combined operation "will make money, but I really cannot tell you how much and how. I cannot make profit forecasts."
Most of the top executives in IBM's PC operation will join Lenovo, including Fran O'Sullivan, who will become chief operating officer. Ms. Ma will be among the few operating executives from the current Lenovo with a top position in the combined company.
作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 华尔街日报：IBM老将的联想机遇 -- wanderer - (3734 Byte) 2004-12-10 周五, 05:24 (2678 reads)
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