14 DAY TRIAL // Lenovo decided to withdraw from the U.S. retail market its Linux-powered ThinkPads, less than a year after the company made them available. The first ThinkPad T61 and R61 notebooks to feature pre-installed Novell SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) were shipped in January this year, and a lot of enthusiasts cheered the company's move after having waited for a long time for this to happen.
There are many users that would rather spend some extra money to acquire a ThinkPad than getting another good laptop or a MacBook air. It seems that lots of Linux users share this 'love' for Lenovo's mobile machines. Not to mention that ThinkWiki is one of the best and popular sites among the enthusiasts, and, as the name also implies, it is for ThinkPads.
Interestingly enough, Lenovo's SLED-powered ThinkPads sold nicely, at least at the business level. Companies or governmental agencies can still put their hand on a few dozens or thousands of SLED-equipped ThinkPads or IdeaPads, yet end-users willing to purchase one or two laptops are not so lucky. A Dell Ubuntu-powered notebook can always be taken into consideration as well.
It seems that the decision to get off the market the Linux-powered mobile machines came from a high-level office, yet Lenovo's executives gave no explanation on the reason the company had for this action. There are voices suggesting that the decision was made by the same home-office executive who agreed with the partnership with Microsoft for the Beijing Olympics. And it's a known fact that it all resulted in the biggest Windows Blue Screen of Death in history.
The ThinkPads will probably be available from now on featuring Microsoft's Vista Operating System, at least for the U.S. market. Again, there are voices that consider the software giant to be manipulating vendors to use its “second-rate” products, and Linux enthusiasts cling to this statement, yet it seems that the company withdrew the SLED-equipped machines only from the U.S. market, and that happened a few weeks ago. For what it is worth, a U.K. user said he bought a Lenovo ThinkPad notebook with Linux OS just yesterday.