Lenovo with NetApp energize its DCG storage at Transform 2.0
Lenovo has announced a series of new products, partnerships and solutions around the company’s ongoing Intelligent Transformation strategy at their Transform 2.0 event in New York City. For the channel, the centerpiece was a multibillion-dollar global strategic partnership between the Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) and NetApp. With ten new storage products, it turns Lenovo-branded storage from a niche item in storage to a broad player, taking part across most of the storage market.
Lenovo’s CEO Yang Yuanqing says, “Lenovo has truly entered a new phase of growth and transformation, a point where we can now claim leadership of the transformation of the fourth industrial revolution, being driven by AI. We have built our business around the new structure of intelligent transformation especially around mobile and the data centre. We now understand the importance of data in fuelling intelligent transformation.”
Yuanqing emphasizes Lenovo’s ability to provide the total integration of cloud, network and the device, and is the fastest-growing player in the hyper-scale space, and a growing presence in edge computing. He also emphasizes how Lenovo is dependent on strategic partnerships.
Kirk Skaugen, EVP & President, Lenovo Data Center Group, sums up the progress DCG has made in the last year. He points out, “Last year, I announced the largest data center transformation in Lenovo’s history. I talked about a lot of brand confusion. Over the last year we have been ramping based on two brand structures, ThinkAgile and ThinkSystem. We have transformed every single aspect of the customer experience.”
This includes moving from four global channel programs to one.
Skaugen has noted that Lenovo has completely re-engaged their system integrator channel, with 175-per cent growth in the last year. They are now also ranked in the top five tech supply chains.
A new strategic partnership with NetApp is the big news of the day, which has the realistic potential to turn Lenovo from a minor storage player into a major challenger to Dell EMC and HPE.
Skaugen says, “Lenovo and NetApp are joining together as two global powerhouses to deliver more choice to customers than ever before, on a global scale that has never been seen, and with rapidly accelerating solutions. It lets Lenovo go from covering 15 per cent to more the 90 per cent of the storage business.”
Ten new storage platforms are announced, with availability today and shipments tomorrow of the first products in this portfolio, from the new Lenovo ThinkSystem DE and DM Series.
Other Lenovo announcements at the show includes the newest addition to the premium ThinkPadX1 laptop portfolio, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, designed for advanced users and prosumers with high performance computing needs, and the first ThinkPad to include NVIDIA discrete graphics. ThinkShield by Lenovo is another new offering. Designed to secure devices through their entire lifecycle, it includes secure BIOS and firmware development, and features like ThinkPad Privacy Guard security screens and the industry’s first laptop camera shutters, and involves collaboration with Intel, MobileIron, Absolute and Coronet.
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