U.S. Approves IBM/Lenovo Sale

MartinB writes with the "Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review result: unanimous approval for the sale to go ahead, with no further external approvals needed. No compromises were required over the location of Lenovo facilities in sensitive research areas, nor were limits put on Lenovo's ability to sell PCs to U.S. agencies."

Re:Wow, I'm moving to China

[Locke2005]

Yeah, but it'll be even harder to find a wife... gender-selective abortions have been quite popular in China for several decades now.

P.S. doesn't China have at least 4 different dialects and regional cuisines?

Re:Go ahead America

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorta. The division itself is being sold outright, but the ability to badge the computers as IBMs is a five-year deal.

Re:PowerPCs here we come

[LesPaul75]

Even the x86 chip makers are leaving it behind in favour of the x86-64.

x86-64 doesn't leave anything behind. It just adds 64-bit registers and addressing to the existing x86 architecture. It carries all the ugly x86 baggage right along with it. Very similar to the transition from "real mode" (16-bit) to "protected mode" (32-bit), except that x86-64 is actually even less of a transition. Protected mode brought with it lots of new stuff, besides just 32-bit registers and addressing.

Re:Go ahead America

[Thud457]

I thought that IBM laptops were already being built in China. So any informal "technology transfer" would have already been going on. This is just selling them the business side of the operation. What, you're worried that they'll learn secrets American shady accounting practices and stock manipulation? Where the hell are they gonna outsource all their jobs to to pump up their stock?!!!!

Re:I blame Bush

[servognome]

Lots of metrics, though the obvious one is political donations--and to the best of my knowledge IBM does not donate to political parties or encourage employees in any way to donate
IBM doesn't have a PAC, which is probably a good move since typically these organizations end up donating to both sides to hedge their bets. But it does participate extensively in lobbying, which I see as just as bad as campaign donations, and have less oversight.
However, I also disagree that share price should be taken as the only metric of company success.
I agree, since share price is more a representation of sentiments of how the company is perceived, rather than a metric of actual company health. However, the shareholders are the ones in charge, they are the ones the CEO has to please. You need to balance, running the company, and not disappointing shareholders.
In this specific case, I think it's part of the general hollowing out of American industry and strengthening of Chinese industry--which mostly reminds me of what happened in America before the Civil War.
I see it differently, the South never changed, it stayed with it's cotton fields taking advantage of its supply of cheap labor. The north changed, gave up the lower value items for the south to produce and focused on higher value industries. In the 70's and 80's electronic manufacturing moved to asia to take advantage of cheaper labor markets, and the US focused on using the cheaper goods for more value added industries such as software. As software is becoming a commodity and being outsourced, domestic companies can focus on more value added activities such as consulting.

Re:IBM Hardware

[burns210]

The IBM Thinkpad X series (their 12" screen line of Thinkpads) is already manufactured in China by a compeitor to Lenovo. Their other series are (I believe) manufatured in the US.