Who can laugh to the last? Interpreting Lenovo's acquisition of IBM X86 servers

"Tenkine Server channel January 26" in June 2012, Lenovo launched the server brand-thinkserver and related products, set a goal in three years to occupy the Chinese market 20% and the global market 10% of the target. January 23, Lenovo suddenly announced the acquisition of IBM X86 Server business, the acquisition of Lenovo in the global market share of more than 10%. Will Lenovo become a leading enterprise-level it vendor through this acquisition? What is the relationship between this acquisition and the IoE of the Chinese market in the near period? What are the opportunities and challenges for other domestic server manufacturers? Today we are going to talk about Lenovo's takeover case.

The success of the copy PC takeover case?

It is well known that the acquisition of IBM's business was not the first time for Lenovo, which, in 2005, had bought IBM's PC business for 1.25 billion of billions of dollars, one of the largest overseas acquisitions of its time. After acquiring IBM's PC business, Lenovo grew faster than all its rivals in recent years and became the world's largest PC maker in 2013.

Lenovo Yang accepts Tenkine visit to discuss acquisition of IBM X86 Server business

Can the acquired X86 server business replicate Lenovo's success in PC? In an enterprise-class it market, mergers and acquisitions are commonplace. It involves hardware, software, services, and related solutions, and enterprise-level IT vendors, whether IBM or Oracle, have acquired many other companies in the past. Lenovo's acquisition, can be said to have got the enterprise-level IT market a "ticket." In the past when we talked about Lenovo, we always think that this is a consumer-grade manufacturer, its commercial and enterprise-class products are only in China's political mining, collection and other aspects have a certain amount of shipments, and can not be regarded as a real sense of the global enterprise-class IT vendors. Today's acquisition of IBM's X86 server business, with IBM's brand advantages and Word-of-mouth accumulation, believe Lenovo in the future of the global server market, will become a force that can not be ignored.

With this acquisition, Lenovo in China's X86 server market share of the moment, and in the global market also won 14% of the market share, ranked third. You know, the server's gross margin of more than 20%, far more than the PC industry's 3%, which for Lenovo's financial statements have a lot of benefits.

Thinkserver now has the IBM boost

In addition, relying on the advantages of products and brands, Lenovo will give Huawei, Shuguang, wave and other manufacturers to bring enormous challenges, in the short term, its market share will surpass other friends. But there is a lot of uncertainty at the same time as the challenges arise, Huawei, for example, has endured years of technology and talent reserves that have withstood the impact of each merger in the IT market in the past, each of which has become an opportunity for Huawei to demonstrate Huawei's technical strength and business confidence to partners and customers, and it can be said to have "overtaken the curve" Unique advantages.

Whether to pick up a big bargain

Lenovo's negotiations with IBM lasted 1 years, and the acquisition, Lenovo not only won the X86 server business, the final contract scope also includes System X, BladeCenter and Flex System Blade server and switch. IBM's revenue for Q4 last year was $27.699 billion trillion, down 6% per cent year-on-year. The hardware business, that is, servers and storage, fell by as much as 26.1%. Compared with IBM's 6.2 billion dollar net profit in the quarter, the hardware business pre-tax profit is only 200 million, for IBM, the abandonment of "inferior" assets to win money to attack more promising market, such things in the history of IBM has been many times. In the 2013 China market, to IoE began to rise, IBM in China's X86 server market encountered great difficulties. At this point will X86 server business to Lenovo, is undoubtedly the most sensible choice. Leaving its system z mainframe, Power Bae, Storage Bae, and power based flex servers, as well as pureapplication and puredata devices, is certainly a way to maximize profit for IBM.

IBM's X86 server business contributes very little to its profits

X86 are using Intel and AMD chips, and the technical barriers are not high. It turns out that IBM has no advantage in "low price".

For domestic server manufacturers, independent research and development although the cycle is long but deep inside, can continue to build a long-term enterprise's own core competitiveness. It remains to be seen whether Lenovo can fully digest and absorb through acquisitions, and how much help it is to build and upgrade its core competencies, and to see if a big bargain is found.

PC change? to the global market

In recent years, the "PC strategy" has been the subject of Lenovo's emphasis. When the strategy was released in 2012, Lenovo believed that the PC industry had entered the era of PC, with different types of devices, from smartphones to smart TVs, capable of computing, storage, and network communications like PCs. Lenovo will launch the end products covering the four categories of smartphones, tablets, PCs and smart TVs, through its integration with Le Yun services, to achieve a transition from a leading manufacturer in the traditional PC field to a leading manufacturer in the PC field. Prior to acquiring IBM's X86 server business, Lenovo placed the server business in the "PC strategy". But with the advent of the IBMX86 server takeover, including in 2013 Lenovo's collaboration with EMC in storage, the 2014 Lenovo strategy will certainly be adjusted to include IBM's X86 server business and its collaboration with EMC's storage business. Now is the real entry into the enterprise-level IT market competition.

Lenovo Carnival announces acquisition of IBM X86 Server business

If Lenovo in the enterprise-class market The biggest advantage, the first should be built in the PC era of strong channel network, but enterprise-class customers need more services, for Lenovo, how to improve the level of enterprise customer service, delivery capacity is the biggest challenge in the future. And the channel for Wang's Lenovo to break through the technical bottlenecks, the IBM does not earn money in the server business and achieve profitability, nor is it a simple thing. Leading product solutions and technology are the real needs of buyers, the acquisition of IBM's X86 server business to help Lenovo to the global market impact, but is more successful than other domestic server manufacturers, I am afraid we can only rely on time to test.