25 Years of ThinkPad
I was in Yokohama, Japan, last week for the Lenovo ThinkPad 25th anniversary celebration. Most of the media in omnipresence were from Europe, South America, and Asia Pacific; I was the merely US analyst there because I worked on the ThinkPad's predecessor—IBM's first clamshell, which came to market in 1988.
Until 1986, most portable computers—similar the original Compaq, Kaypro, and Osborne—were known as "luggables." Just at CEBIT in March 1986, Toshiba introduced the first real commercial clamshell, kicking off the race to have the smallest and lightest laptop.
At this time, I was ane of only a few outside market research analysts who was brought into IBM to assistance with marketing and positioning of hereafter PC products. When IBM decided information technology too needed to do a clamshell, I spent much of 1987 flying between Austin, TX—where information technology was designed—and Boca Raton, FL—where its marketing plans were being developed.
By 1991, IBM began to shift its focus away from the rather bland-looking clamshell to a machine with a serious focus on industrial pattern. The ThinkPad team was built-in, and included legendary design guru Richard Sapper, David Loma, and Arimasa Naitoh.
Naitoh-san was on hand at the Yokohama outcome, where he told me that one time IBM really grasped the importance of industrial pattern, it became a central element of a whole host of products and services tied to the ThinkPad.
According to Hill, the first ThinkPad pattern was not a clamshell, merely a tablet with a stylus. If you know your PC history, Microsoft became a big fan of tablets and pen-based computing as early as 1991, and was trying to become its partners to back the idea. But the ThinkPad squad was not convinced; the Thinkpad 700C laptop was introduced in 1992.
A review from the December. 22, 1992 issue of PC Magazine
Interestingly, Sapper's inspiration for the original ThinkPad came from a Bento Box—a box with multiple smaller boxes inside to hold various types of food. He translated that into the ThinkPad'southward boxy frame with diverse sections optimized for computing tasks.
One interesting tidbit that Hill shared at the event is that the ThinkPad'south distinctive red TrackPoint centre button almost never happened. Execs told Sapper he could non utilize red since that was the color of the emergency off button on IBM's mainframes.
Sapper argued that there was no relationship between a red emergency button and a red TrackPoint, but IBM legal prevailed. Sapper compromised by tinting the red colour a chip and calling it magenta. Ironically, when the first ThinkPad shipped, engineers made the TrackPoint button more red than magenta and did not get grief from IBM legal later that.
From IBM's standpoint, the ThinkPad became its flagship portable PC, even though it still fabricated desktops. But as early on as 2003, IBM was wrestling with the idea of whether to stay in the PC marketplace. Demand for PCs had started to tiptop and IBM was already starting to motility more into software and services. So in mid-2005, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo. This was a pretty radical movement for IBM and Lenovo; until then, no Chinese company had acquired a major US company, especially one as iconic and powerful as IBM'south PC business organisation.
To Lenovo's credit, it maintained all of IBM'southward PC contracts, which included major PC buyers in business, the military, and other authorities firms. Still, many entities were leery of providing confidential information to a Chinese company. Information technology took awhile to sort this out, simply the ThinkPad line continued. Just expect at the ThinkPad numbers sold in the last 25 years. Until 2005, when Lenovo took over IBM's PC business, IBM had sold 25 million ThinkPads. Since then, Lenovo has sold another 105 million.
In whatsoever industry, it is hard to maintain one product blueprint for a few years, permit alone 25. Going forwards, I imagine Sapper'southward original pattern parameters will continue to guide the expect and feel of any ThinkPad-branded production in the hereafter. Naitoh-san says he's most interested in the concept of a folding portable laptop. I beloved that idea, and hope he and his team can create it.
Almost Tim Bajarin
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/opinion/17766/25-years-of-thinkpad
Posted by: millerdurs1999.blogspot.com
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