Lenovo: We Won't Get Into Services
Van Dujil spoke to more than 200 solution providers Monday at Synnex's Varnex Spring Conference in Orlando, Fla., where he said he hopes the absence of a direct services business will be a key differentiator for Lenovo compared to its competitors. Other PC makers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and others also have services arms, often very profitable services arms, in addition to hardware.
"We are a PC company. We are dedicated to becoming important, more relevant with partners. That is THE focus point in our company," van Dujil told the crowd during a keynote session. "Look at all the big players rapidly going into the services business. We don't. We won't. We want to partner with [solution providers] who provide that proposition."
Van Dujil also illustrated Lenovo's broadening PC-based portfolio by showing a video that touts the 20 new products announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Lenovo is counting on those products to capture more mindshare with consumers and business customers, which should lead to services engagements for partners, he said.
"[The U1] looks like a Wintel notebook, but you have a full slate tablet that's seamlessly integrated. It's as thin as an iPad and if you want to switch from notebook to tablet you don't have to reboot. It's a breakthrough in that type of design," van Dujil said.
In the SMB space, van Dujil showed off one of Lenovo's upcoming Skylight PCs, launching this July.
"Our strategy is like Rocky Balboa. Protect and Attack. We protect the enterprise and [midmarket] space then jab with our attack strategy in [small business]. That's how we're going to market with sales reps. We took some of our budgets, funds, and resources for the enterprise and moved them over to the transactional market, which is how we go to market with partners," van Dujil said.
Lenovo has announced a smart phone soon to be available in China and van Dujils said expect to see more convergence products from the company.
"Smartbooks, mobile phones are not going to go away. That will be the trend of the future. Notebooks will continue to be there, but more form factors, all-in-ones, netbooks, tablets, those are taking off unbelievably fast," he said. "And for those [partners] that provide services, there will be great opportunities for software and systems management. Cost of ownership will come down and productivity ROI will be tremendous."