Lenovo, who long ago took over IBM's laptop line and managed to turn it around, will be taking on yet another portion of IBM's business. They aren't taking over for IBM entirely, but now they will be licensing their xServer technologies. Lenovo will begin building xServers and selling them through to retail.
This is yet another sign of IBM existing the hardware market, moving more into services. IBM denies it, but it has become very obvious over the years that IBM is moving to a more service-based organization. At the moment, Lenovo will be targeting small businesses with their line of xServers, far away from the enterprise-class customers that IBM usually goes after. Could that change, however? It would be interesting indeed to see Lenovo also take over for IBM in the enterprise server market.