Lenovo Exec: Partners Should Order ‘Quickly’ For Best Prices Amid Memory Crunch

Lenovo’s North America president says that the memory chip shortage, caused by ongoing AI data center boom, is prompting conversations with the vendor’s partners about the ‘criticality’ of customers’ hardware needs and their ‘sensitivity to the increasing price environment.’

Lenovo’s channel partners should act “quickly” on product orders to get the “most attractive pricing” for customers who are sensitive to rising costs caused by the global memory chip shortage, its North America president told CRN.

The business leader, Ryan McCurdy, said in a recent interview that major supply constraints in DRAM and NAND chips, caused by the ongoing AI data center boom, is prompting conversations with Lenovo’s partners about the “criticality” of their customers’ hardware needs and their “sensitivity to the increasing price environment.”

“If the infrastructure is critical in the next three, six, 12 months, and the pricing sensitivity is high, then we get into a scenario where we’re acting quickly because essentially the current stock that is at our distributors and at our partners [has] some of the most attractive product pricing that will exist for the next six to 12 months,” he said. “So it’s really a bias for action if that infrastructure is critical and if the sensitivity is high.”

Research firm IDC has said that the memory shortage is not part of a typical boom-and-bust cycle but instead reflects a “potentially permanent, strategic reallocation of the world’s silicon wafer capacity.” The supply constraints, which began last year, prompted OEMs, including Lenovo, to warn partners and customers of big price increases for devices, according to IDC.

The leader of a U.S. systems integrator told CRN on Wednesday that even with the push for customers to order hardware as fast as possible, he has seen the supply for certain server products disappear within hours from multiple vendors.

“If [customers are] ready [and] they know they want it, buy it as soon as you can because the pricing is one thing. The actual availability of the parts is the other. That’s what I’m more worried about,” said the executive, who asked to not be named to speak candidly.

For example, the systems integration leader said he was working on a “pretty large” deal for GPU-accelerated servers on a recent Friday with Dell Technologies.

“And then at the end of the day, they said, ‘Sorry, we’re sold out.’ We couldn’t even get the deal because the product’s not there anymore. It’s that fluid,” said the executive, who added that he wasn’t even given a lead time for when the product would become available again.

Lenovo Partner: Customers Are Buying Less Hardware

The advice for customers to make orders quickly is sound but may clash with the slow pace at which customers approve purchases, according to Andy Lin, CTO and vice president of strategy and innovation of Houston-based systems integrator Mark III Systems. The company is a Lenovo Platinum Partner as well as an Nvidia Partner Network award winner.

This tension exists because, with price quotes now only lasting for roughly a couple weeks instead of a month or longer due to the memory shortage, many of Mark III’s customers cannot approve orders fast enough to get products at the originally quoted price, Lin said.

“It’s challenging for clients because most of them can’t actually execute the purchase of equipment within two weeks, even if they decided that they do want to do it, just from a process perspective,” he said Wednesday.

Because many of these customers—which he said consist of large organizations that include businesses, universities and government entities—have fixed budgets, the escalating costs often result in the customers purchasing less hardware, according to Lin.

“Everyone knows the current situation. They’re all somewhat disappointed, because many of them budgeted for something more than they’re actually getting. But that’s the state of the world,” he said.

McCurdy: Lenovo Better Suited At Handling Supply Chain Issues

Speaking from the CES 2026 trade show in early January, McCurdy said the impact of the memory shortage was the “first or second question” in all his meetings with partners and customers at the event. He added that Lenovo is “better position than most to navigate this environment” with a “very flexible” supply chain, echoing previous comments he made.

“It’s accelerating the price-supply conversations as we went through November and December, and it’s front and center here this week,” he said.

“Coming out of [the COVID-19 pandemic], I think we’ve demonstrated Lenovo’s ability to navigate very challenging supply chain disruptions that are industry wide, and I think we also navigated the tariffs pretty nicely last year,” he said.

Wade McFarland, Lenovo’s North America channel chief, said in the same interview that the company will continue to prioritize transparent communication with partners in the same way it had with previous supply chain shake-ups. In recent conversations, partners are now asking for more frequent updates on Lenovo matters, he added.

“I think we set ourselves apart just in terms of how we communicate with the partner community,” said McFarland, whose title is vice president of North America channel.

Lenovo Seeks Extended Forecasts From Partners On Hardware Needs

McCurdy, a former Intel executive who became Lenovo’s North America president in 2023, said Lenovo is asking partners to provide an extended forecast of customer hardware needs, whether that’s for multiple quarters of the full year. He noted that these needs will vary depending on whether they are for data center products or PCs.

“The [Infrastructure Solutions Group] customer in the data center may want to buy, build and store product that they need for the full year, because it’s that critical and it’s that sensitive to not only the price but the ability to get access to the components. It’s very dynamic,” McCurdy said.

While cloud service provider customers building out AI data centers are very aware of the memory situation, there is a need for Lenovo’s partners to ensure that midmarket and SMB customers, particularly those buying PCs and other kinds of client devices, understand the price and supply dynamics at play, according to McCurdy.

“Because it might not seem as urgent in the near term, but we’re going to see this develop over the next couple quarters,” he said.

For instance, McCurdy pointed to AI PCs, which typically come with higher DRAM capacities to support on-device AI features and therefore come with implications of higher prices depending on the configuration, which can reach 32 GB or higher.

“There’s decisions to be made there,” he said.

Michael Goldstein, market president of southeast Florida for Fort Myers, Fla.-based managed services provider Entech, told CRN on Wednesday that Lenovo has helped his company stay ahead of PC supply and pricing issues with its MSP program.

This program gives partners price quotes from multiple distributors when they make purchase requests for customers, Goldstein said, and the turnaround is fast.

“I popped it in there, and within an hour and a half, I had a full-scale quote from one of the distributors for everything. So for us, it gives us some of that variation,” he said.