Lenovo is a US$45 billion Fortune Global 500 company and a global technology leader in driving Intelligent Transformation through smart devices and infrastructure that create the best user experience. Lenovo manufactures one of the world’s widest portfolio of connected products, including smartphones (Motorola), tablets, PCs (ThinkPad, Yoga, Lenovo Legion) and workstations as well as AR/VR devices and smart home/office solutions.
Lenovo Transform 2.0 brought together customers, partners and tech industry experts from around the world for a high-energy collaborative experience - new solution announcements, immersive sessions and hands on demos with industry experts that will help provoke new strategies for unlocking the potential of transformative innovation in Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things to transform IT. The annual event brings together technology professionals, Lenovo’s latest products and insightful panels and presentations from major industry experts and influencers who are shaping the future of Artificial Intelligence and other transformative technologies.
Sumir Bhatia
President, Data Center Group
Lenovo, Asia Pacific
Lenovo Transform 2.0 has announced a series of partnerships and solutions designed for business customers that demonstrate the company’s ongoing Intelligent Transformation strategy, with a unique focus on Lenovo and NetApp partnership for progress. The strategy reflects Lenovo’s unique business perspective on how to build end-to-end solutions with smart features that transform businesses and improve the user experience.
Transform 2.0 has open a newer opportunity in the Technology transformation and Datacentre modernization space.
Intelligent Transformation will reinvent and restructure entire systems of production, management, and governance worldwide. It is driven by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, augmented reality, the Internet of Things, blockchain and 5G connectivity. Lenovo excels in these competencies – based in the cloud, distributed through infrastructure, including networks and delivered by devices.
The latest announcements respond to the appetite for new devices and computers that meet the demands of customers and consumers, harnessing the potential of data, cloud computing and machine learning.
Yang Yuanqing, CEO, Lenovo, says, “Today, we share industry leading partnership and product announcements, reinforcing our dedication to realizing the great potential of Intelligent Transformation. From the largest portfolio of devices in the world, leadership in the data center, to the algorithm powered intelligent vertical solutions, and built on strong partnerships Lenovo has built over decades, we have the complete playbook for Intelligent Transformation. Lenovo is a business ready for the future, and we are a partner helping to drive intelligent transformation with companies globally, every single day.”
The innovations happening at Lenovo are creating the capacity and computing power for the connections that are changing business and society.
Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) has announced strategic partnership with two global powerhouse. Lenovo’s business decisions and partnerships help improve society both today and tomorrow, with the goal of empowering its customers and partners to adapt, evolve, and navigate today’s economic conditions as they transform their businesses. Lenovo recently announced a new partnership with NetApp, the data authority for hybrid cloud. The multi-billion dollar global strategic partnership will help customers modernize their IT architectures and accelerate their digital transformation. Leveraging the strength of both the companies, Lenovo and NetApp will develop and bring to market new high-performance and next generation flash storage products and solutions scaling from the edge to the core network to the cloud. The partnership includes a new joint venture in China to deliver localized solutions for the world’s fastest growing storage and data market.
Kirk Skaugen, Executive Vice President, Lenovo and President, Data Center Group, says, “Lenovo continues to disrupt the data center market with our customer-centric solutions. Our announcement with NetApp demonstrates our commitment to delivering the best storage and data management offerings for our customers. Our legacy-free approach to developing data center products and services means we work with the best partners in the industry to provide the right technology for customers as they make their own Intelligent Transformation a reality.”
Sumir Bhatia -President, Data Center Group, Lenovo, Asia Pacific, spoke about Lenovo’s transformation from 1.0 to 2.0 , by focusing on the Datacenter Infrastructure surrounded by various technology services. “India is the biggest growth area and we are going to invest heavily towards developing the channel eco-system,” he said.
“Talking about Data center group(DCG),we want to be the most trusted Datacenter partner for the customer, we try to solve the humanity based challenges. Lenovo’s data center solutions (ThinkSystem, ThinkAgile) are creating the capacity and computing power for the connections that are changing business and society. We have taken every best possible steps to serve the customer in Transform 2.0. Here we have a great channel programme and system integrator growth plan in place and you are going to witness something most exciting from 1st January 2019,with our own supply chain, and improved engineering solutions to give customer a choice,” said Sumir.
“We are No.1 in High performance computing(HPC), and Data analytics, that shows our branding with Ferrari and Ducati on the high performance. Regarding performance, it is our own responsibility,” Sumir said.“Our 40% bonus is coming from the customer satisfaction. Today, Lenovo is No.1 in HPC, Software Defined Infrastructure, HPCAI, Datacentre Supply chain, DC Infrastructure, IoT and services. 17 out of the top 25 research Universities run Lenovo. Today, we are the No.1 provider of Supercomputer of the world.”
Vivek Sharma, Managing Director, Lenovo Data Center Group India, says, “Digital transformation is changing the landscape of countries, cities and enterprises. India is a strategic market for Lenovo and Transform 2.0 2018 reaffirms our commitment to the country, as a center of digitization and innovation. Through Lenovo’s differentiated approach to empower partners; they can tap new markets and unlock new opportunities.”
Lenovo now makes 117 of the 500 most powerful supercomputers on the planet almost 1 in 4. Lenovo’s system designs are helping drive important research all over the world like the Marconi Supercomputer in Italy, and Canada’s SciNet.
Lenovo, NetApp announce partnership at Transform 2.0 in New York
Lenovo and NetApp have forged a storage alliance at the recently concluded Lenovo Transform event. The partnership also includes a joint venture in China, and a new series of all-flash and hybrid flash products that put them both in a much stronger position in the datacenter space.
The storage offerings include two families, each subdivided into all-flash and hybrid -flash products, jointly developed by Lenovo and NetApp and available now worldwide. Several of the products support NVMe (non-volatile memory express), the extremely fast communications protocol and controller able to move data to and from SSDs via the PCIe-bus standard. NVMe SSDs are designed to provide two orders of magnitude speed improvement over prior SSDs.
The companies stated that they would work closely together not only on the sales side but also in product development globally. On the other hand, the joint venture in China was formed to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized for China's unique requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem.
Lenovo understands that while it has a line-up of SAN (storage-attached network), DAS (direct-attached storage) and tape storage products, it still cannot rival Dell EMC and HPE as a complete, one-stop-shop hardware and storage provider. By teaming up with NetApp, Lenovo wishes to create an even playing field with the competitors. NetApp, on its part gets access to Lenovo manufacturing, global channels and a huge customer base.
Lenovo finds themselves in the same position as Dell and HP had been a long time ago. Over time, both Dell and HP grew their portfolios via a series of acquisitions, which include Dell's acquisition of EMC and HPE's Nimble Storage buy. With NetApp on its side, Lenovo can go pitching into enterprises for storage along with their broad portfolio of servers. This will also go a long way in helping the company gain some leverage in the enterprise.
