Lenovo UK boss pulls the chain, flushes himself out of there

EMEA?

When I first saw that acronym, I wonder what it was.

When I found, it was a WTF? moment.

It seems really odd for large internationals to have CxOs for "EMEA" when they are such distinct and separate markets. Taken as the three separate groupings they are, they have little in common from culture to language roots.

I do wonder if that is one of the reasons some of these companies fail or don't do as well as they expect in "EMEA"

Get out while the going's bad... before it gets really bad.

Personally, I'd buy a Lenovo before I bought an HP.*

I happen to have one of each Lenovo and HP laptops. Bought the HP from a friend who needed the cash. The laptops are about the same vintage and performance, so comparisons are reasonable. I'm using the HP because it's got a bigger display, and gave my daughter the Lenovo.

Most of it's little stuff. The Lenovo has more USB ports, one of which is a combo ESATA (thus powered). Fewer USB ports is annoying, especially since the HP doesn't have Bluetooth. I grabbed a spare combo WiFi/BT module from the Lenovo and stuck it into the HP and... it refused to boot. Oh, it POSTed fine, it just stopped with an error. Not a hardware error -- a configuration error. The BIOS knew that it wasn't the module the HP was set up for, and wouldn't let me even try to boot. Basically, HP doesn't want you upgrading without taking the unit back to HP and throwing money at them.

Whereas the Lenovo would run with any module I threw in there. Doesn't care. Swap modules; one Windows driver installation later and it Just Works.

So if I want BT I have to use one of my precious few USB ports, which normally isn't a problem, except now I have a USB dongle sticking out and taking physical damage every time I get the least bit careless.

Anyway, you get the idea. The HP isn't bad, but I resent their attempts to lock me in. Oh, and how much do you want to bet if I take the laptop to HP for an upgrade, they'll just try to sell me a new unit? (Or tell me to go play in the street.) It's pretty old. I bet they won't even service it any more. So the money grab attempt is pure avarice and only serves to obsolesce the unit more quickly.

HP aren't at the bottom of my list -- I'd buy an HP before I bought a Dell, f'rinstance -- but they're pretty far down.

Fortunately for my sanity's sake I ended up with a tablet and I now use that for watching videos instead of the laptop. It's more convenient, and it has BT built in.

*Pretty much literally true, since I bought the Lenovo first, then the HP. Hah hah. See what I did there? Nyuk nyuk.