Lenovo Desktop Computer Product Lines

Some business buyers find they are happier now that IBM sold its desktop computer business to Lenovo, a Chinese company that had been making most of the components for IBM's desktop line anyway. "Lenovo has made the buying process a lot easier," says IT consultant Thomas Carroll of Computer Services in Huntington Station, NY. Apparently Lenovo is able to focus on selling its desktop and laptop computers, whereas PCs had been a demotivating loss leader for IBM for years.

So prices are competitive, and the Web site is clean, but of course there are a confusing number of confusingly positioned and confusingly priced business product lines: the ThinkCentre A, M, E, and S lines — sounds like the New York subway system. For our purposes, however, it's simple: The M and S series target large enterprises, so for our small-business readers (up to 99 employees) we stick to the E series, which is the value line of preconfigured models. And for the more demanding or more ambitious small/medium-size businesses, Lenovo offers the A series, its middle-of-the-road line that's also offered in preconfigured models but can be configured in detail if you like.