PC News: Lenovo Returns to Chinese Management

Lenovo has announced some major changes in its top management, with President and CEO William Amelio resigning after the PC maker reported a $97 million loss for the last three months of 2008, which represents both a 20 percent drop compared to the previous year and its first loss in nearly three years. Like many others in the industry, Lenovo blames the weak global economy for its dwindling sales and said it plans to turn its focus back to China hoping to reverse its fortunes.

The company says it has grown successfully on the international stage, and in fact they currently stand as the fourth largest computer maker in the world, but China still represents around 45 percent of their total sales and is the foundation of Lenovo’s global business. As part of their shift in strategy, Amelio will be succeeded by Yang Yuanqing, who will step down from his current position as chairman of Lenovo to take on the CEO role while founder Liu Chuanzhi will take the chairman spot.

The move echoes the earlier returns of Michael Dell to Dell and Steve Jobs to Apple during the periods when these companies they helped build struggled to compete, but whether a renewed focus on China will help Lenovo regain strength in the short term remains to be seen.

Source: by Jose Vilches – TechSpot.com

PC News: Vista the Least Popular Windows OS Ever

Once upon a time, Microsoft crowed that Windows Vista would be twice as popular as XP. Research firm Ovum, Ltd., predicted a more modest 15 percent switchover in the first year, but gushed that Vista would be “the fastest-moving operating system ever.” IDC forecast 10 percent, relatively anemic compared to XP’s 14 percent in the first year, but a decent showing.

And now? More than two years after its launch Vista has managed a penetration of just 9 percent, according to a Forrester Research report released last week, giving it the dubious distinction of being the least popular new Windows OS out of the gate, ever.

But things are looking up for Vista. This year finally will be the big one, says Forrester. Really. Thirty-one percent of the 962 North American and European IT decision makers interviewed for the report have already begun migrating to Vista; another 26 percent plan to start in 2009 or later.

On the other hand, “IT decision makers don’t have an entirely rosy outlook for Windows Vista,” wrote analyst Benjamin Gray. Some 28 percent of respondents have not yet decided about whether or not to migrate, and 15 percent plan on skipping Vista altogether and going straight to Windows 7 when a final version is released in 2010.

Here’s how enterprises currently break out, according to the report: 71 percent still use Windows XP, 10 percent use Windows 2000, 9 percent use Vista, Apple’s Mac OS X and “other” each garner 3 percent, and 2 percent use Linux.

Source: PCWorld.com