Might the hardware pioneer get out of the hardware business?
Last week, Lenovo acquired another chunk of IBM's hardware business when it spent $2.3billion on the latter's x86 based server operations. Slowly, the company renowned for being a hardware pioneer – hard disk drives, mainframes and minicomputers – is moving towards becoming a software and services business. In fact, the company's latest annual report says 81% of its revenue now comes from that area and implies the percentage will continue to grow.
So is the writing on the wall for the company's microelectronics business? It still has a high end server operation based around its Power Architecture processors and remains interested in process technology development. But how long will that interest remain? And if the microelectronics business did appear on the market, who might buy it?
