Well you can expect a new brand of computers to be out in stores very soon. The third largest computer making company Lenovo Group Ltd is coming out with their own brand of computers including desktops starting at just $350 and laptops at $599. They plan to be the next IBM but hopefully bigger. They are a China based company and their commercial during the Olympics helped become known world wide. Their plan is to start selling computers online and around China and maybe in retail stores around the world. Their laptops will be about 6.5 pounds and silver, with a 3 in 1 Wi-Fi card inside. They sound like they could be the next dell but maybe bigger. It ought to be interesting to see how they come out into the computer world.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060223/ap_on_...HNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Ever heard of the IBM ThinkPad? It's now called the Lenovo ThinkPad. That's right, Lenovo IS the next IBM. They purchased IBM's PC unit for a cool 1.75 billion dollars in June of last year.

Lenovo is a Chinese hardware development company. From PCs to cell phones. So, in addition to IBM's hardware, they will be adding their own to the equation as well. This could make for some quite good PCs and notebooks.

You can read up on the following links for more information about Lenovo and the acquisition of the IBM PC dept.

Pre-Acquisition: http://pcworld.about.com/news/Dec122005id123895.htm
Post-Acquisition: http://pcworld.about.com/news/May022005id120670.htm

IC, if this is the case, isn't this just renaming of the brands from IBM Thinkpad to Lenovo Thinkpad or whatever names they want to modify? In reality will there be so much changes?

The first post link is not found anymore. I couldn't read if the new laptops are any different from the previous IBM thinkpads.

They have their line of already developed ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops, but you can be 100% sure they will start making them a little differently. They have their own technology and ideas to work with as well as IBM's now. So, most of the current and older models are still essentially IBM desktops and notebooks.. but they've already begun making different systems.