IBM Website Addresses Partners’ Lenovo x86 Server Deal Questions

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) chief Meg Whitman earlier this year dispensed with accepted IT etiquette and openly looked to sow some seeds of confusion among channel partners and customers over IBM’s (IBM) sale of its x86 server business to Lenovo.

At the Morgan Stanley conference in March, Whitman told analysts there was a “real near-term opportunity for HP to actually gain share among some of our competitors who appear to be a little less stable than we do right now,” in a thinly veiled reference to IBM’s troubled hardware business. The message grew to be a refrain Whitman has repeated a number of times in other settings.

Lenovo subsequently fired back a few weeks later in a memo from Gerry Smith, the company’s Enterprise Business Group president, urging its server sales team to ignore the “uncertainty and doubt” competitors were peddling in the acquisition’s wake. “As the old saying goes, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Smith wrote.

But the squabble must have struck a chord within IBM.

Channel chief Mark Dupaquier, not the most visible of big time channel chiefs, blogged last week about a new web page called “Transitioning x86 to Lenovo,” the vendor has set up devoted to answering channel partners’ questions on the deal.

“With the announcement of Lenovo’s plan to acquire the IBM x86 server business, we understand that clients and Business Partners have questions and require more information,” wrote Dupaquier. “Lenovo will become IBM’s preferred x86 server vendor after the transaction closes, and we remain confident that the server systems transitioning to Lenovo will have a strong future,” pointing to Lenovo’s “proven strengths in scalability, operational efficiency and a broad channel presence combined with IBM innovation.”

The web page features a video with Adalio Sanchez, IBM x86 and PureSystems Solutions general manager, discussing details of the sale, along with more information on why IBM made the move, which products are involved and the mechanics of the transition.