Now that IBM plans to sell its PC division to Beijing-based Lenovo, the big question is whether the companies can keep users from defecting to other vendors--which would put IBM"s once standard-setting PCs even further behind systems from Dell and Hewlett-Packard in market share. After the deal with Lenovo was announced this week, some of the more than two-dozen IBM users Computerworld interviewed or contacted via e-mail said they don"t expect the planned sell-off to have an immediate effect on their companies.
But many others voiced concerns about whether the quality of IBM"s hardware and the technical support they receive will suffer once Lenovo takes over during next year"s second quarter. For example, longtime IBM user Sidney Soberman, director of technology systems at The H.W. Wilson Co. in New York, said the publishing company"s ThinkPad notebook PCs are durable and never break down. But with Lenovo buying the technology, "I would tend to think the quality of the notebooks will decline," said Soberman.