China's Lenovo Group Ltd., the world's third-largest PC maker, announced Thursday to start selling low-priced computers targeted at small US businesses and consumers, taking the Lenovo brand outside China the first time and boosting its competition with Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

 

The new products named 3000 product family with the latest processor technologies in a new silver chassis, different from Lenovo's Think line of products, represent Lenovo's first major expansion into the US computer market since it completed the purchase of IBM's PC business last May.

 

"Lenovo 3000 product family embodies a distinct entrepreneurial persona by combining the most successful components of enterprise level, Think pad-inspired technologies with the latest Lenovo innovations to create PCs Users can depend on," said Deepak Advani, Lenovo's vice president and chief marketing officer, "Lenovo will offer the new PCs as the smart choice for today's most savvy entrepreneurs, priced to fit the budgets and computing needs of even the smallest firms."

 

The Lenovo 3000 product features built-in tools designed to help reduce IT expenses in small businesses environments where every dollar counts. These tools let small business owners concentrate on their businesses -rather than their IT- with virus recovery, simplified network connectivity, and automatic updates, said the Lenovo spokesman.

 

Lenovo's 3000 desktops will start at about US$350, while Lenovo 3000 C Series notebooks will start at about US$599.

 

Small and midsize businesses last year spent more than US$400 billion on computer-related products and services worldwide, and that amount is expected to increase in 2006, according to Gartner Inc..

 

The products were unveiled the same time in 10 cities worldwide, including New York, Paris, and Torino, Italy, where Lenovo has been a major sponsor of the Olympics to help it expand its brand recognition beyond China.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2006)