Local IBM PC employees gear up for Lenovo move

A spokesperson for the global tech heavyweight told ZDNet Australia  on Wednesday afternoon that senior executives including Philip Bullock, IBM's chief executive in Australia and New Zealand and Alan Munro, IBM's general manager of the personal computing division, were meeting with employees to explain the ramifications of the proposed transaction.

The planned deal -- whereby Lenovo would acquire IBM's personal computing division to form the world's third largest personal computing company -- is expected to be finalised in the second quarter next year, pending regulatory reviews and the approval of Lenovo shareholders.

Munro is expected to head Lenovo's Australian and New Zealand operations once the deal is completed.

The spokesperson confirmed that "everyone who works in the PC division" was expected to transition over, indicating no redundancies were planned as a result of the deal.

He said the conditions for the employees who shift to Lenovo were at this stage expected to be comparable to those under which they worked at Big Blue. However, he added, "obviously the deal will be finalised in [the second quarter] next year, so there's time to go before Lenovo makes offers to employees".

The spokesperson said clients could expect "business as usual as the deal is finalised". He pointed out that Lenovo was taking on the entire current capabilities of Big Blue's personal computing business, including research and development, marketing and customer care, while adding its own capabilities such as increased scale and customer expertise.

Also ensuring a smooth transition was a five-year agreement between the two companies, whereby Lenovo will be IBM's preferred supplier and IBM will provide warranty, financing and services support to customers through its IBM Global Financing and IBM Global Services arms.

The spokesperson added that the product roadmap was expected to remain the same for at least the next 18 months.

A Gartner's Asia-Pacific research analyst, John Roberts, predicted this week that three of the top 10 personal computing vendors would exit the market by 2007, driven largely by a lean three-year period for the global personal computer market after 2005.

He also said at least three Chinese information technology companies would become significant global competitors by 2010.