Lenovo News

New Lenovo Servers Rack Up on Performance, Virtualization and Usability

TORONTO, ON  – June 30, 2009: Lenovo today announced its latest line of servers, the ThinkServer TD200 and TD200x tower servers as well as the RD210 and RD220 rack servers. The new servers offer small to mid-sized businesses the latest in performance with several choices of Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and vastly expanded memory and storage. These ThinkServers are also equipped for virtualization and several power saving features to help customers cut their energy usage without sacrificing performance.

Powering Up for Performance

Equipped with the latest Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors, the new ThinkServers are up to three times faster than their predecessors. With high-speed DDR3 memory up to 128GB, the latest models offer far more memory than previous Lenovo servers. These highly scalable, dual processor servers also offer increased storage capacity with up to twelve hard drive bays in the rack models and up to 16 in the tower models.

Equipped for Virtualization

Lenovo’s new ThinkServers are virtualization ready, with several time and cost saving features that help customers seamlessly transition to a virtual environment. The latest ThinkServers come standard with an onboard connector for an embedded hypervisor.  With the expanded memory and storage capacity on the new models, customers can consolidate several legacy servers onto a single new ThinkServer to save on hardware costs and energy usage while boosting their return on investment. Lenovo also supports a variety of virtualization solutions from Microsoft, Novell, VMWare and Red Hat.

“Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Centre management suite running on Lenovo ThinkServers offers customers a solution that can help them be more efficient,  lower operational costs and optimize power consumption,” said Zane Adam, senior director of virtualization and management, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp. “This combination empowers our customers to optimize their IT operations with tools that are familiar and easier to use.”

Powering Greener, More Energy Efficient Servers

The ThinkServer TD200, TD200x, RD210 and RD220 are the most energy efficient servers from Lenovo yet, featuring low wattage processor and memory options, and small form-factor hard drives. Select models are compliant with Energy Star for Servers 1.0, finalized in May 2009, which provides a 30 percent reduction in power usage compared with other x86 servers that do not meet the standard. In addition, the ThinkServers’ power supplies are more than 92 percent efficient, meaning more energy is translated into usable power.

Server Management Goes Mobile

The new ThinkServers come standard with the Integrated Management Module (IMM), which provides complete, “always-on,” out-of-band server management capabilities via an easy-to-use Web interface. With IMM, users can remotely access and manage their ThinkServer from anywhere, anytime, even if the server has crashed or is turned off.

Select models come standard with IMM Premium, giving users full control of their ThinkServer (including the mouse, keyboard and video) from remote locations, as well as the ability to connect local drives remotely to their ThinkServer through virtual media.

“Our second generation of ThinkServers make giant leaps in both performance and usability for small and mid-sized businesses, while offering new virtualization and energy efficient features leading to a substantially lower cost of ownership,” said Tom Tobul, executive director, Enterprise Systems, Software and Peripherals, Lenovo. “Lenovo ThinkServers are designed as turnkey solutions to help our customers smoothly scale up and easily manage their server environment.”

Peace-of-Mind Services

Servers are a critical IT mechanism at the heart of many businesses. That’s why Lenovo’s server solution provides total support for both hardware and software to help customers without IT departments quickly set up, update and manage their servers.

In addition to its standard warranty, Lenovo offers ThinkServer customers a 90-day trial of ThinkPlus Priority Support services so customers have the complete support they need during the critical first days after their server purchase. This provides services such as next business day warranty service, 24x7 hardware and software phone support, as well as priority call routing to advanced technicians. For customers who need on-site hardware installation and online training, Lenovo also offers the ThinkPlus Productivity service plan.  

Pricing and Availability¹

The ThinkServer RD210, RD220 and TD200x are available worldwide through business partners and Lenovo sales representatives. The RD210 and RD220 are available immediately, and TD200 and TD200x will be available starting July 2009. Pricing for the RD210 starts at $2969 and the RD220 at $3299. The TD200x starts at $4499.

Lenovo Offers Portfolio of PCs Meeting Energy Star 5.0 Specification

TORONTO, ON – June 29, 2009 – Lenovo announced today that more than 25 of its Think-branded business and Idea-branded consumer PCs meet the new ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 Specification for Computers, which goes into effect on July 1, 2009. Lenovo PCs including the ThinkPad X301, T400s, W700ds and the IdeaPad U330 and Y430 laptops and select ThinkCentre M58, M58p and M58e Eco desktops have been 5.0 certified and available to purchase for up to six months. 

ENERGY STAR, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, provides a system to rate the energy efficiency of various products.  Lenovo’s fleet of ENERGY STAR 5.0 certified PCs adhere to various standards including power management and on-mode power consumption requirements. For example, a ThinkCentre M58 small form factor desktop and a ThinkVision L1940p Wide monitor together provide an extraordinarily energy efficient combination for use in large organizations or in a home-based business, using only 377 kilowatts per year¹, compared to a baseline PC and CRT monitor at 635 KWH.  By comparison, a refrigerator consumes an estimated 529 KWH.

ThinkPad laptops have continued to raise the industry bar in innovative environmental design with technologies such as solid-state drives, LED backlit displays and low-power processors that help decrease the PCs’ energy consumption.  Also, Lenovo's Power Manager feature helps users monitor their energy usage and conserve battery life. 

A full lineup of Lenovo ThinkVision monitors from 17 to 24-inches meet the Energy Star 5.0 criteria, nine months before the separate specification for monitors takes effect in October. Lenovo’s ThinkVision monitors use a special reflective polarizer technology to help reuse much of the light that would be lost in a standard LCD monitor, thus achieving adequate brightness while using less energy. 

“Green design factors into each step in engineering our PCs, starting with recycled materials to delivering higher levels of energy efficiency to giving customers options for recycling at the end of life,” said Fran O’Sullivan, senior vice president, Think Product Group, Lenovo. “Improving the energy efficiency of Lenovo PCs helps customers not only reduce their carbon footprint but also save money throughout the life of their PC.”

Green Design – From Beginning to End

Lenovo is committed to providing customers greener options throughout the lifecycle of their PCs, starting with using recycled content. Lenovo leads the PC industry in offering the most PC products using post-consumer recycled materials.² In 2008, Lenovo used more than 2.2 million pounds of post-consumer recycled plastics in its PCs. This contributes to more than 60 Lenovo products being rated Gold by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool.

Lenovo offers bulk packaging at no cost for customers with large-scale rollouts of laptop or desktop PCs such as universities and large enterprises. Bulk packaging can save up to more than four pounds of materials per PC, so a deployment of 5,000 ThinkCentre desktops, for example, could save nearly 22,000 pounds in materials, a significant waste reduction. To supplement this effort, Lenovo is also using up to 100 percent recycled cushioning materials in select ThinkPad laptop, ThinkCentre desktop and ThinkVision monitor packaging. In addition, Lenovo is transitioning the IdeaPad S10e netbook packaging to a smaller, reduced-dye box to help minimize waste.

In addition, Lenovo is making it easy for customers to recycle their unwanted, end-of-life PCs. The Lenovo Eco Take Back Program allows consumers to recycle any Lenovo or IBM product for free and receive money back on any brand of PC that has residual value. For business customers, Lenovo offers Asset Recovery Services to provide computer take-back, data destruction, refurbishment and recycling.  A video on Lenovo’s program can be viewed here.

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LLenovo

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building exceptionally engineered personal computers. Lenovo’s business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centres in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see www.lenovo.com.

¹ PC energy usage estimated using the Typical Energy Consumption calculation methodology from Energy Star 5.0, and Lenovo measured energy values for Energy Star 5.0 defined energy usage states. 

²Compared against EPEAT data on Dell, HP, Acer, Panasonic and Toshiba available on www.epeat.net as of June 29, 2009.