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Just sometimes back, computer giant Lenovo had global media gathering in Beijing to witness the 2008 Olympics preparations. The message to the world was that Lenovo will play a key role in making this worlds most popular sporting event a big success through its strong brand value known for its products reliability, robust nature, and superior technology. In another move, Lenovo announced that it is partnering with the AT&T Williams Formula One (F1) team to launch the new ThinkStation branda new entry in the workstation PC marketplace that extends the companys 15-year-old Think product lineup.

At the Olympics 2008
Lenovo is, no doubt, looking at Olympics as the biggest opportunity to turn its image from a Chinese company to a global PC player. According to Lenovo group chairman Yang Yanquing, Sponsorship of the Beijing Olympic has started to pay-off. It is helping us build our brand internationally, which is a key business objective for us. In fact, to build brands in emerging markets like India, Lenovo is open to the idea of similar tie-ups with regional games such as the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

However, to term Lenovos Olympic and Williams F1 association as a branding move will be a gross underestimation of what the company is actually delivering in terms of technology solutions.

For Beijing Olympics, which starts in August 2008, Lenovo is not just providing 20,000 pieces of equipment, including 12,000 desktops, 6,000 notebooks, and server and printers, but is also going to handle all IT-related issues. The games will take place in Beijing and six more cities, with 100,000 volunteers, 20,000 athletes, and 10,000 games officials. According to Leon Xie, director, Olympic Technology and Sponsorship at Lenovo, Our infrastructure will manage timing and scoring, on-venue results, administration and logistics, and information security. There will be 400 on-site engineers deployed to take care of any problems or hiccups that may come up. In terms of IT deployment, this one at Beijing is said to be the biggest ever.

Technology is helping not just in managing logistics and scores. For instance, the Beijing Olympic torch has also been designed on Lenovo workstations. According to Yao Yingjia, vice president, Lenovo Innovation Design Center, Designers in four of Lenovos innovation design centers in Beijing, North Carolina, Yamato in Japan, and Mumbai effectively collaborated on teleconferencing and videoconferencing to design the torch. Over 30,000 Olympic torches are being made for torchlight rallies.

And F1 Cars
Similarly, at AT&T Williams, which is in the business of designing and manufacturing the most advanced F1 racing cars in the world, Lenovo systems are being used to diagnose, repair, and push the limit on racing performance. AT&T Williams is one of the worlds leading F1 teams with 16 FIA F1 World Championship titles and 113 Grand Prix victories to its credit. With about 520 employees based in rural Oxfordshire, the company is unique in the F1 World Championship as it is the only organization that exists solely on racing. The companys core competencies are the design and manufacture of F1 cars.

Lenovo wants to change its image from a Chinese company to a global PC player

Even though we make four to five new F1 cars every year, our time from conceptualization to taking the car on track is about twelve months. And every new model is 80% changed over the previous model. We run our motor sports business like our carsfast, accurate and innovative, said Alex Burns, chief operating officer, Williams F1. Lenovos new ThinkStation workstations are helping change the way our engineers work with faster interaction and design simulation to produce the next winning car, Burns added.

The ThinkStation dual processor D10 and single processor S10 workstations offer Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5400 series and Intel Core2 Extreme processor QX9650, respectively, large hard drive, and the latest graphics solutions from NVIDIA. They also come equipped with fast connectivity with dual Gigabit Ethernet and multiple slots, bays and USB ports for expandability.

At AT&T Williams, Lenovo   systems are being used to diagnose, repair, and push the limit on racing performance

According to Chris Kelly, director, AP Center for Excellence for Lenovo, The ThinkStation has been designed for very high performance, and will deliver an unparalleled experience for graphical and compute intensive applications such as computer aided design/engineering, digital content creation, oil and gas exploration, and electronic design automation.

Its Also About Green
Beyond the high-performance focus, Lenovo is also bringing environment friendliness to its products. For instance, it has designed these workstations with the environment in mind by offering models complying with the Environmental Protection Agencys Energy Star 4.0 requirements to help users manage energy usage and costs. The workstations feature 80% efficient power supplies. Additionally, they contain more than 50% recycled plastic content. The workstation also includes illuminated front I/O ports to help users work more easily in multiple systems in dim light conditions.

Lenovos new ThinkStations are helping change the way engineers work

For a cool and quiet experience, Lenovo designed a unique dual channel thermal system that pulls air outside over the processors, providing the workstations with acoustics equivalent to Lenovos standard desktop PC.

Recently, Williams F1 has acquired a huge 166 cluster supercomputer from Lenovo for running a range of high-performance applications. According to Kelly, besides AT&T Williams team, the NBA is also extensively using Lenovo machines, and is now evaluating these workstations for integration into their operations.

Lenovo has been successfully flirting with Olympics and racing cars to show off its association with the top notch in sports and games, where technology quality and reliability matters. And, surely it will get millions of eyeballs. At a time when computer makers are engaged in a dog-eat-dog battle to win customers, experts agree that Lenovos move is strategic and timely.

Ibrahim Ahmad
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in
The author was hosted in Beijing and Oxfordshire, the UK

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