PURCHASE, N.Y., June 29, 2005 – Lenovo won its first design award in the international BusinessWeek / IDSA competition this month, with the innovative Lenovo Smartphone ET960 taking bronze in the Computer Equipment category.
The annual international competition, sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine and run independently by the Industrial Design Society of America, recognizes the “best of the best from the U.S., Asia, and Europe.” The IDSA praised Lenovo for attention to user ergonomics, integration of multiple technologies and features, and use of strong product design to help establish global identity. Lenovo was one of only 148 winners in a field of 1,380 entries.
“Design is fast becoming a must-have competency for corporations,” said the July 4, 2005, edition of BusinessWeek. “It has evolved from a simple way of giving form and color to products into a powerful tool for ‘C’ suite executives. Design methods get managers close to their customers, design research helps top execs visualize the future, and design strategies help companies innovate.”
Lenovo’s IDSA design award further adds to the award-winning record of the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre development team, which Lenovo acquired from IBM on May 1. The ThinkPad and ThinkCentre development team previously won 10 BusinessWeek / IDSA design awards, as well as 36 awards from the Industrie Forum Design, another leading international design competition. Lenovo in China previously won Intel’s Innovative PC Design Award for three consecutive years. In 2003, Lenovo in China won four influential regional design awards, including the Japan G-Mark International Design Award, German IF International Design Award, CHIPS magazine Annual Product Award at CEBIT, as well as Hong Kong Design Center’s Best China Design Award.
Lenovo’s international development team today includes more than 1,400 engineers, scientists, programmers and developers in Beijing, Chengdu, and Shenzhen, China; Yamato, Japan; and Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
“Lenovo is focused on innovation that solves problems for users and businesses,” said George He, senior vice president for research and development for Lenovo. “With an international development team focused on innovative technologies for customers around the world, we’re proud to build on an award-winning tradition.”
The Smartphone ET960, aimed at consumers in China, weighs only 130 grams (4.5 ounces U.S.), and yet operates as a mobile telephone, as a Pocket PC, as an MP3 music player, as a media player capable of receiving television transmissions, as a 1.3 megapixel camera, and as a games device. It also features Bluetooth connectivity, Tri-band GSM and GPRS capability for calls nearly anywhere in the world, and a memory card expansion slot for Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMedia Card (MMC). The phone sells for about $800.
About Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992; ADR: LNVGY) is an innovative, international computer hardware company comprised of the former IBM Personal Computing Division and Lenovo. Lenovo is the world’s third largest PC vendor and develops, manufactures, and markets the most reliable, secure, and easy-to-use technology products.
Lenovo offers the award-winning ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops, featuring the ThinkVantage Technologies software tools as well as ThinkVision monitors and a full line of PC accessories and options. Lenovo employs 19,000 people worldwide and serves businesses and consumers in 160 countries around the world. Lenovo is the leading PC vendor in China, one of the world’s fastest growing markets, offering a variety of consumer and commercial PCs, servers, printers, storage and digital products.
For more information, see www.lenovo.com . For more information about the design competition, see www.businessweek.com and www.idsa.org .
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Lenovo, ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, ThinkVision and ThinkVantage are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo Group Ltd.