Lenovo Founder Resigns as President

[rrplay]

Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi had resigned yesterday as the president of its parent company Legend Holdings, with company official announcement at midday on Monday.

Liu will remain the chairman of the company, and his successor will be Zhu Linan, a member of the company’s executive committee and former vice president.

Lenovo is China’s largest PC maker and the world’s second-largest. The company has met its outsized ambition with growth that allowed it to challenge Hewlett-Packard, once its inspiration.

The Economist detailed his work in 2001:

"Legend was triumphing over its competitors. It had lower costs than the foreigners, but its biggest advantage lay in its distribution network. Mr Liu used his ties to China’s state-owned enterprises to sell them computers, and dispatched armies of retail staff throughout China to teach first-timers how to click a mouse. He could not match the Americans in R&D spending, but he made up for this in local touch. Legend, for instance, pioneered a new keyboard that made it easier to write Chinese characters. In 1997, Legend became China’s top-selling brand."

As China’s electronics manufacturing fortunes have grown, so have Lenovo’s. But the company — like HP — is still working to transition from a hardware provider to a services provider.

Article Source and Image: ZDNET