Lenovo slips into jam-packed SMB server market

Uses Big Blue tech to rival Big Blue

Chinese computer maker Lenovo is bigging up its newfound love for all things server-shaped with today’s announcement about its new ThinkServer product line.

The company inked a licensing agreement with IBM at the start of this year to make and sell a range of x86 servers. At the time Lenovo was clearly making a play for the small to medium-sized business (SMB) crowd.

Today it made those intentions clear. Lenovo is punting three towers and two rack x86 servers that come equipped with Intel Core 2 Duo or Xeon 3000 or 3200 processors, aimed at businesses ranging in size from one to 500 employees.

The ThinkServer line carries a price tag starting at $749 and will be available at the end of this month through its channel partners. The products can be loaded with Microsoft Windows Server or Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, said the firm.

Meanwhile, Big Blue is busy eyeing up the services and solutions market place where rival Hewlett-Packard has also made a big, messy splash with the recent takeover of EDS. IBM granted Lenovo wonks the right to access intellectual property for its server tech in January.

Lenovo will now be hoping to compete in a crowded SMB server market place to jockey with the big boys, Dell, HP and even tech bedfellow IBM. ®