BANGALORE, INDIA: Lenovo has emerged as the No. 1 player in the Indian Enterprise business segment by a sizable margin. This has also spurred Lenovo India to achieve double digit market share (10.3 percent ) for the first ever time according to the IDC figures for Q3 of FY 2010-11.

Behind this achievement is Lenovo’s 'Corporate Protect and Attack strategy' that seems to have been quite successful till now. In an interview with CIOL,  Rahul Agarwal, executive director, Commercial Business, Lenovo India talked about the rapidly changing work environment in enterprises and how Lenovo is bracing for the new mobile world.

CIOL: How is Lenovo moving with the changing trends in enterprise PC adoption?

Rahul Agarwal: Lenovo closely monitors enterprises’ IT requirements and accordingly introduces products to meet the needs and requirements of the industry in a timely fashion. It is this R&D mantra of futuristic product design that is evident in our latest enterprise devices as well.  In order to leverage this growing trend among enterprises, Lenovo has introduced a range of sleek and space-saving All-in-One PCs, the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70z and Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z. These All-in-One PCs consolidate a traditional desktop with a monitor in a single, compact unit offering a perfect blend of sophistication and simplicity, ideal for Relational Business.

Also read: Lenovo sees LePad outpacing iPad in China

CIOL: Given the low rate of desktop PC adoptions, will Lenovo stop their shipments anytime soon?

Rahul Agarwal: A December 2010 report by IDC India has predicted an overall growth of 22 percent for the Indian PC market in 2011, wherein, notebook sales and desktop PC sales are expected to grow by 42 percent and 9 percent respectively. While traditional desktops are still being purchased by enterprises, there is a huge inclination towards an emerging segment, namely All-in-One PCs. An all-in-one desktop combines the traditional tower desktop, monitor and peripherals (like the camera, speakers and microphone) into one sleek package that does it all. It is cordless, saves space and provides an incredible performance.

Today, Lenovo leads the All-in-One segment with a market share of close to 50 per cent and has impressed users
across all age groups and lifestyles - who are excited by the idea of interactive PC as well as users, who may be
unfamiliar with computing products and users on a tight budget and expect complete value for their money. Lenovo is
focusing more on the All-in-One segment and aims to provide greater diversity to its enterprise consumers through
offerings across segments and price band.

CIOL: Do you think the tablet devices can replace netbooks soon?

Rahul Agarwal: Reading e-books, playing games or surfing the Internet is quite easy in tablets, but writing a word document or inputting data into a spreadsheet can become quite cumbersome. Essentially, both netbooks and tablets cater to different types of consumers.

We feel that though tablets are becoming widely adopted by enterprises, there is still a great demand for robust yet
ultraportable PCs among users. Keeping the needs of a quintessential business user in mind, Lenovo has introduced the ThinkPad T-series and X-series that provide powerful performance along with the advantage of being thinner, lighter and highly robust.

CIOL: What is the secret behind Lenovo’s strong growth and positioning in the last 4 quarters in the Enterprise segment?

Rahul Agarwal: Lenovo is dedicated to building the world's most exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile Internet devices that combine the latest technology, sharpest design and richest usage models to deliver the highest value and best end-to-end user experience. Lenovo’s winning product portfolio powered by the ‘Think’ brand, addresses users across price bands and segments. Over the last 19 years, it has proved to be the ultimate business tool and has helped Lenovo to become the Number one notebook vendor to large enterprises today.

In OND 2010, Lenovo India achieved an overall double digit market share (10.3 pc). The Relational business also
achieved the No. 1 position in the Indian Enterprise PC segment with a market share of 21.8 pc in India as well as the
No 1 position in the VLE (Very Large Enterprise) segment with a market share of 33.7 pc. Lenovo will continue to offer its business partners desirable qualities such as robustness, innovation, minimal TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) that are hallmarks of the legendary ThinkPad and ThinkCentre products.

CIOL: What are your plans with ‘Think’ brand for 2011?

Rahul Agarwal: We are one of the first players in India to adopt Intel’s 2nd generation processors on our latest ThinkPads – Lenovo ThinkPad T420 and Lenovo ThinkPad L420. These notebooks demonstrate greater efficiency and power management, which allows for thinner, lighter as well as more innovative PCs to be designed.

We also plan to focus more on adopting the ‘Think Green’ approach to green computing and creating energy efficient
products.

CIOL: Among which verticals do you expect higher growth during 2011?

Rahul Agarwal: With AIOs gaining popularity, we foresee most of the business set-ups to shift their focus towards more compact and mobile platforms. Contrary to market expectations, we believe VLEs (Very Large Enterprises) are also increasing their investments and share of ThinkPad purchases than ever before. Presently, Lenovo leads the VLE segment with a market share of 33.7 pc and aspires to further grow this hare in coming months. We aim to sustain this leadership and leverage ‘Think’ in the premium market as well, which constitutes the Large Enterprises (LEs).

Among our enterprise customers, we aim to leverage the momentum we are gaining in the Government and Education
sector with the newly-enhanced, powerful Think product portfolio.