Gadgetory

hey guys in lab would average we're sitting here with John Franco lunchy president of emea region for lenovo you've introduced a selection of new products they can you give us an overview of what they are we produced quite a quite a good number of a new product yeah first of all I think we introduced a new king panda ultrabook i think is probably the thinnest and light travelling in the world also the lighter what is a really different is that is a carbon carbon fibers of material is a new material we we are dealing with the carbon fiber material since 92 so it's not not completely new the real difference that is this is a new material in terms of confinement much more stronger than what we were used to or what industry were used to to get to get before okay here's an interesting question you say there were carbon fibers and I had to but who is the we in this part is it lenovo the company or IBM who's think that brand and business you guys took over who has been dealing with for that amount of time in 92 for sure it was IBM acting right I don't think it was great was early no no no I mean it just kept me from it is coming from IBM experience but even remember other notebook during the history of using carbon fiber I think the real difference that the carbon fiber you get today camber fiber is a very strong material as sometimes it's too much flexible what you get today is a strong material and not not not as flexible as before so you really you really can generate a stronger strong notebook in terms of reliability yeah and rigidity and much more much more richer than and in terms of waiter of course it's only the under pound or so but very very light I just wanted to pick up on the thinkpad branding and the take home from IBM etc that brand did that name is really the and I gave them over foothold into the region that you're in charge of now you're primarily it's big market what does the think pad and think pc branding mean today well how do you want people to react to it as consumers because you've diversified it isn't just the thinkpad profession business laptops as you say you not have carbon fiber bodies you never had that before laptops you're introducing new designs like the chiclet keyboard design your kind of evolving it so what would you say the brand means people nowadays I I think that when you look at the team part that the meaning of the brand is still is still the same it's it means you know first of all professional brenda is still you know the brand we use to address big enterprise and global account it means and reliability manage media t strong a very strong strong product very professional like that of course even when you think about professional product design become important so how is much more nicer than maybe I think but one or two two years ago in terms of design but when you think about the meaning of the of the thinkpad brand i think is still still the same it's a recognized probably number one brand when you think about professional or commercial commercial application and we want to keep thinkpad with this kind of brand reputation and brand definition so okay so you're sticking with the professional aspect but do you not want to have the thinkpad brand do you not want to push it more and into the consumer market or do you still want to see to be for it to be seen as a professional product and everything's like your idea line to fill the consumer space i I think we will continue to manage thinkpad for commercial for the professional space and 12 idea Brenda for or for consumer we also introduce some new product on on the idea brand which is an ultrabook like kind of product is not really a new trouble because it's a little bit thicker than oh don't worry don't worry did they put all triple labels and everything updates yeah but the dread standard definition is 21 millimeter this is a little bit more than 21 millimeter but it's in terms of look and feel really looks like a new trabucco and it's a very very affordable product because we start from 499 when you if you think an ultrabook today is 7 9 999 999 fair enough i mean the reason i keep asking about the ping pad is because i myself consider myself more or less a consumer and by interesting or less though is the consumer but at the same time I look at these professional devices such a thing bad and kind of think of them as aspirational devices so yes they were expensive but the things that appeal to professionals are also the things that appeal to myself as well so when you say professionals like carbon fiber because it gives you a rigid body and reliability well consumers like that too so what I was really hoping I think a lot of people might be hoping is for the noble to take the thing branding and that same standard of quality and then bring it down to you know more affordable prices maybe would you look to do that you know if you develop product with the certain specs and certain features in terms of material and so on of course then you need to look at certain price point amigos very spring break it down the price point the 9th cir you need the tube to cut a certain team so it's not that it's possible to bring down the hand the price of the product independently from from the manufacturing costs and from the material material costs that's understandable and also i wanted to ask you about something you said that your primary business your core business is still pc and during your presentation today and while i was happening I really wanted to ask you what does that mean anymore because particularly windows 8 Microsoft is changing what we easy and the way that you described is that the pc is changing as well i think when we say that our core business is tpc because we believe that the pc is evolving pcs evolving in you know different for fact or different display size it's not not not anymore a tradition or not book or deck so as it was in perceived until yesterday I would say but is still a pc that is through Microsoft with windows 8 introduction is bringing a lot of new fun factor from tablet to set a lot of different convertible or the touchable or any kind of a different idea you can you can think about but is still a pc in the sense that still running within the ecosystem of pc ecosystem that its own which is windows it's also becoming touch which is of course different user experience is what we call a pc plus definitions pc with the evolution of with the evolution of pc we see in the future but is still a when when i look at technology from technology point of view and in terms of how you handle this kind of product how you manage in terms of us are indeed this kind of product still I would say a PC remember easy plus what we mean for PC plus a is all the other devices you can think about coming together with pc in in the next in the next camming the quarters over here related to from one side windows 8 introduction can be tablet or even other products like android the tablet we also announced today to three different android tablet from seven inches to nine inches to 10 inches at least it's another portion of what we call pc plus so it's a would say multiple devices with the different screen sizes maybe even four different up asian from user point of view but still in the PC in the PC world i speaking of the pc world that's actually great lead we have to ask you about this how do you feel about microsoft surface tablets how do you feel about their presence now in the market in the hardware market what we feel i think it's very good that microsoft came with with the with the tablet showing that they are very confident in from one side windows 8 and also tablet tablet application with with with the windows 8 we are not negative in the sense that it's another layer in the adware space fine but I link on the other side it's a clear indication to consumer they strongly believe and I think it cannot the industry to establish windows 8 not only for traditional PC but also for new for new from facto we are not negative at olin on windows microsoft com ingens another competitor and what people think is a very strong comparison because it looks like a promising cell lysis surface a for sure is a very good device and i think it will push the entire industry to develop good devices and to be more competitive you know too if i look at the invite today when when you look at this industry there are more or less three different ecosystem and windows is one of the ecosystem I think we have been working and we have with Microsoft for a long period of time is very good partner of us we really don't see the problem Michaels of coming introducing a tablet and showing to the world what you can do with windows 8 see your solution is just make a better tablet it will pusher the industry to make a better tablet yes which is good for the industry and for consumer absolutely and I'm not topic actually there is they're having this sort of trend particularly wonders identified by analysts of the industry to us to say that innovation is kind of moving toward the software side of things rather than hardware do you feel that's the case that you kind of read we're all kind of reaching the maximum that we can achieve with hardware innovation and now it's a matter of innovating on the software side of things I think we will continue to see innovation on the other side you also will continue to see innovation on the software side work is really different in my opinion that today probably you also need to think about how you integrate are going softer together and you need also in innovation from integration point of view but I think we will continue to the integration on outdoors way in innovation or not do as well and this is something now who is actively looking into it and this is something where we are we are looking at this portion we are looking at the other portion as well so I'll to integrate argue and software when you think about tablet or even smartphone that the integration part is bigger but if you think from our point of view I don't think innovation is we are at the end of innovation you you you we will see a lot of things coming in the next couple of years talking about innovation that you know today this place do you eejit 22 years from now display would be one hundred percent flexible affordable and flexible because it's already possible but it's a little bit of space so you can think about the lies that are totally different than the current from photo trendy these are very no in fact looking forward yes it's not done and I'm not topic actually I just want to bring it back to the carbon fiber years because one thing that also really excites me is can we see a carbon fiber think phone have you considered that but I think carbon fiber is good when you think about the big surface it's not a case that has been used for the Boeing 787 I and there was not almost availability of carbon fiber in the world for a certain period of time because a plane industry was almost taking one hundred percent of the capacity carbon fiber makes sense when you think about certain certain size if you go to small size in terms of you know it types of waiter we were almost done great anything because it's too small and even in terms of material and rigidity of material and it's not really making a big differences oh ok so the benefit just isn't worthless and the expense although I must say again speaking from a consumer point of view there there are many many people out there who would love just to buy it just to be able to say they have a carbon fiber phone particularly one branded as a thing phone I mean seriously think people think about and just just to quickly wrap up I want to ask you about into an arm because you've done two things which are novel with both companies so on the inter side you did the cake hundred phone over in China which is one of the very first intermed few phones into moving into the smartphone arena so first it was because that being a success for you how's the reaction being we're question in China digo smartphone we are really very successful we became not to get the K it's running well it's okay yes say well any chance you can see that going global on smartphone our strategy i think is very very clear today i think we want to continue to grow in China we want to continue to build up our know-how and scale in China where we have a stone Brenda strong presence it's a good combination of what you need in order to be successful on a smartphone in the meantime we will look outside the China and when the right dimension in terms of market share and also the right brand the reputation or we build up the strong brand outside the China in some in some region in some country we will also introduce a smartphone in the future but for the time being it in focus is on China and to make sure that we are doing well in China and we build up their I knowledge and the right capability in in China that's fair enough and turn to the outside arm is now coming into the windows / pc arena and you've done a Windows RT tablet well tablet / laptop because everybody seems to be doing this convertible hybrid device nowadays you have the yoga and it has Tegra 3 it's running take a free so which say you're making a big bet on arm and arm based pcs or is that more of an experiment for you I think in the in the future we will see a good combination of was a different operating system and indifferent cpu to be successful I think you know Intel is good for certain application I'm can be good for other application it depends on which kind of a solution that you want to bring to the user but I Linda is a space for for both and just finally I know you've been asked this question a whole heap of times but I'm curious and I have to know you used to be CEO of ASA you now want to want to live I think everybody knows that about you you know one of the leading figures at lenovo i just hoping you might be able to compare the two companies for us in a very general sense terms of their culture and ambition and I guess where each company wants to be would you say they're very different Oh what similarities my baby between them and a company for sure are different i think lenovo is also do probably to that position of IBM how they build up by the business during the last few years i think it's a three global company you don't find the too many pc company that idea our company today and when I say global I mean not a company with the 200 offices around the world because this is a really simple you go you open different offices around the world and you have 200 offices when I say global I mean company that is run by people executive coming from a different region of the world with different culture with different experience so a good integration of people understanding also different different market situation and so on and this is I think it's almost unique in this industry if I look at the picture today the other important thing or the other big difference if i compare with the with the other companies that I think Leno has a very strong commercial business and those strong consumer business at least in China consumer business but we want also to develop consumer business outside the China so it's a very good balance between commercial and consumer and again that are probably not too many company with the good balance between commercial and consumer when when i look at the pc arena today I probably only one not ugly frankly speaking so I think did and the other which company referring to my HP that's not so difficult because all the other are either focus on consumer or focus on on kamesha but it's very diff you to find the people there was actually some speculation by HP pending its consumer PC business o our back but if I look at what the side until yesterday I don't think so that I don't know what you actually know something more but I don't think so well it's an interesting perspective and the other thing in my way that well he's very very different again if i look at lenovo we have a very strong base in china and china is by far the largest market for pc and if you look at the pc story usually company that has been very successful in pc it is because they build up the business of the starter coming from strong home base and then they have been able to the outside so I think these are the three major difference I think global stronger base in China so strong base in the largest market in the world and good balance between commercial and goes you one so in summary what you're saying is first you take China then you take the world yeah like oh let's say first till you grow in China or certain things and then you can go outside but because this business is a matter of scale so you if you have a good strong home food well you can develop scale he said if you look at history OPC most of the company were coming from us not because they were better than other companies in because they had a big market home market where they could start and they could build up knowledge and scale all right thanks very much Rita thank you thank you pretty appreciative