Former Dell Exec is New Lenovo CEO

Stephen Ward, the IBM executive who helped engineer the merger deal between Lenovo and the venerable PC maker, said Tuesday that he would step down and remain as a consultant to the company. Replacing Ward is former Dell Asia chief William Amelio.

In comments to the press, the company was quick to assure that the decision was Ward's own, and he was not asked to resign nor was he fired. Ward's resignation was expected eventually, although some found the announcement surprising as many analysts viewed him as a key part of the combined company.

However others, including Rob Enderle of The Enderle Group, see it as crucial to the company's future success. "While this will not be an easy or a simple path it is one that will be critical for the company if they ever want to reach the potential of eventually challenging for market leadership," he said.

Credited with Dell's success in the Asian market, Amelio is expected to further strengthen Lenovo in the Asian market, where analysts say the company should be able to dominate easily, and transition it to a faster moving company to keep up with market-leading Dell.

"With our integration of IBM's PC Division on track and our organizational integration complete, we are accelerating our planning for our next phase of growth. Steve and Lenovo's board agreed that now is the right time for this transition," Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing said.

The integration has gone well for the two companies, with Lenovo only losing a portion of the combined marketshare. The merger was announced in December 2004, and completed last May. The two companies expect to have the process of merging into a common brand complete by the middle of 2006.

Amelio joins the company immediately and will assume his role as CEO. Ward has agreed to assist Lenovo in its transition, and will remain in a consultant role with the company.

"Yuanqing and I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. Bringing in Bill Amelio is a great move. Lenovo is an incredible company and I have great confidence in its future success," Ward added.

Enderle says that what would be a normally difficult transition should not be much of a problem at all. "Bill worked with both Steve Ward and IBM's current CEO Sam Palmasano at IBM so clearly understands IBM culture and so may be the ideal bridge CEO to take the IBM legacy employees into the new model," he said.