14 DAY TRIAL // Partnerships are hardly something new in the IT industry, since pooling resources usually does pay out, so it won't come as an overly huge surprise to hear that Lenovo and NEC might be considering a collaboration.
In a market where companies usually specialize in a certain area, or several related fields, interdependence is a given.
While some larger companies sometimes acquire the IP of smaller ones, interdependent outfits often decide on collaborations, temporary or otherwise.
This once, Lenovo and NEC are the ones rumored to be considering a partnership, at least this is what reports have been saying.
For those that do not know, Lenovo Group is the world's fourth largest supplier of personal computers, while NEC Corp. is the top PC supplier in Japan.
Basically, the two will start making new systems and attempt to reduce costs and become more competitive through what is known as economies of scale.
To be more specific, Lenovo may acquire a majority stake in NEC Personal Products, NEC's PC unit, hopefully leading to easier material procurement and faster development and production, among other things.
For those interested in marketing details, Lenovo, so far, holds 10% of the worldwide PC market, while NEC is limited to 18% of only the domestic market in Japan.
Considering that Lenovo itself has 27% of the Japanese market, a joint venture would end up covering about 45% of it. Thus, that NEC would benefit from this sort of collaboration isn't really in doubt.
On the other hand, it is unclear if Lenovo will even get anything out of it all, considering that NEC-branded systems will still remain on the market.
Neither company commented on these rumors in any way, but just the need for more sales or to use NEC technologies may be enough to justify such a decision on Lenovo's part.