Are Lenovo ThinkPad Laptops Still Best for the Enterprise?

NEWS ANALYSIS Lenovo was once the enterprise's darling. But after some false starts, the Lenovo and its ThinkPad laptop line might not be best-suited for the enterprise anymore as it now faces some stiff competition from the likes of HP and Dell. This week, the Lenovo ThinkPad T400s looked to offer something new for enterprise and business users.

Lenovo announced June 23 that it has launched a new notebook designed specifically for the enterprise. Dubbed the ThinkPad T400s, the notebook sports a thin-and-light feel with more battery life. It also includes an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the option of installing a solid state drive. The ThinkPad T400s has a 14.1-inch display, and weighs just 3.9 pounds. The starting price is set at $1,599.

Lenovo has high hopes for the T400s. The company that once controlled the enterprise market is now the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer. In recent years, it has even slipped in the enterprise as HP and Dell provided compelling alternatives. 

It wasn't uncommon for IT consultants to recommend Lenovo PCs to enterprise clients on a daily basis just a few years ago. Today, most consultants will tell you that it's a tough battle between HP, Dell and Lenovo.

Realizing that, Lenovo is taking a hard line in its focus on the enterprise. 

According to the company's worldwide segment manager for the ThinkPad T-Series, David Critchley, Lenovo's new T-400s took "the structure and some of the sub-components" of its high-end X300 series and "matched them with the manageability, performance and cost-optimized attributes of the T400 into...the T400s."

"It's really light and really thin for a corporate system and we think it's in a class by itself for corporate notebooks," Critchley said.