国际英语新闻：Founder: Lenovo will defend its turf

BEIJING, Feb. 6 -- Chinese flagship computer maker Lenovo on Thursday experienced the biggest turbulence since it bought IBM's PC-making business in 2005.

    Stung by huge losses, Lenovo reinstated company founder Liu Chuanzhi, 64, as chairman in place of Yang Yuanqing. The company's CEO William Amelio was replaced by Yang.

Below are the translated excerpts of Liu's interview with sina.com.

    Q: What do you think of your return as the company's chairman?

    A: In 2000, I stepped down as Lenovo's CEO. When the company took over IBM's PC business in 2004, I resigned as chairman and hoped the present team would expand the company's global presence.

    At present, the company is generally in a good shape. But the unexpected global financial crisis is set to hit Lenovo hard. That is because most of Lenovo's overseas customers are corporate clients. The financial crisis has forced many corporations to cut costs. And the first choice for cost cutting is to cut IT spending and then trim workforce.

    Therefore, Lenovo is bearing the biggest blunt of the ongoing financial crisis.

    That will significantly affect Lenovo's performance in the next quarter.

    Under such circumstance, the board hopes we can make our development strategy clearer, to be exact, to reduce the financial crisis' impact on Lenovo's basic business to the minimum level.

    Lenovo's core business is from China and other emerging economies. The best leader for this core business is Yang Yuanqing, as he is quite familiar with these regions. The board appointed me chairman so that I can take over some of the responsibilities from Yang and help him concentrate more on the company's core business.

    Q: What are your comments on Lenovo's business development activities in the overseas market recently?

    A: It is good to see that Lenovo has managed to survive the overseas markets after acquiring IBM's PC business.

    After acquiring a foreign company, a plight that most Chinese companies are likely to face is that consumers do not recognize the brand any more.

    For example, after we bought Thinkpad brand, consumers might be reluctant to buy products under such a brand. This is quite risky.

    Another potential pitfall is that the company's international management team might collapse.

    Now the Thinkpad brand has basically won consumers' confidence and our international team has been well-established. Besides we have developed new supply chains and IT systems. All these have laid a solid foundation for our future development.

    Q: Will there be any strategic change after you take over as Lenovo chairman?

    A: Lenovo's development strategies in the long term and in the short run (now) are very clear. We are determined to defend our turf in Europe and the United States with our products targeting the big corporate clients. And we have to make sure we do not lose share in the premium market.

    Besides, we will continue to expand in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and Brazil.