Lenovo also announces an entirely new Special Bids system, and the delay of the replacement of the IBM services contract tool with a new one from Lenovo.
Sammy Kinlaw, Lenovo channel chief
Lenovo has officially told its partners that the back end work in the migration of the legacy IBM System x operations and processes onto a common Lenovo IT platform has been completed. With this, the company says that its One Lenovo infrastructure is finally a reality. and for partners, there will be several immediate effects.
First, with the back end work done, the company has been able to launch a new Partner Portal. The Lenovo Partner Portal formally notified all members with a welcome email that contained a link to reset their password, which is required to access the new portal.
The new Lenovo Partner Network website is the centralized host of content and marketing resources for all their products, programs, services and financing information. It provides access to password-protected content such as pricing lists, announcement letters and training courses. It also now also provides single sign-on access to management tools for reporting, rebates claiming, and new deal acquisitions. More training materials will be available there over the next few weeks, and Lenovo says they will notify partners when they are available.
The other major component of the new system is the announcement of several pricing-related changes. The Special Bids process has been completely changed. OPRA, the Special Bids Tool for System x deals, has been retired. Special Bids Pricing will now be handled by the Lenovo Sales Teams.
In addition, Lenovo channel chief Sammy Kinlaw has informed partners that the release of Lenovo’s services contract tool to the channel, which had been scheduled for earlier this month, has been moved back until February 15th. At that time, Lenovo’s own tool called “OneView” for the Channel will replace IBM’s ISAT quoting tool.
