Originally posted by Jason Evangelho, Forbes

The first laptop I owned was a ThinkPad T20, and the next one may very likely be the ThinkPad Helix which Lenovo unveiled at CES 2013. In a sea of touch-inspired Windows 8 hardware, it’s the first ultrabook convertible with a form factor that gets everything right.

The first batch of Windows 8 ultrabooks get high marks for their inspired designs, but aren’t quite flexible enough to truly be BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) solutions. Lenovo’s own IdeaPad Yoga came close, but the sensation of feeling the keyboard underneath your fingers when transformed into tablet mode was slightly jarring. Dell‘s XPS 12 solved that problem with its clever rotating hinge design, but I wanted the ability to remove the tablet display entirely from both of those products.

Enter the ThinkPad Helix with its “rip and flip” design.

Originally Posted by Aaron Goldberg, Tablets at Work Blog

When we start to talk about using tablets in an enterprise, one of the first things that must be understood is that the tablets we all know and love are not industrial-strength designs focused on the needs of a commercial organization.  Rather, these are consumer-first products that have real limitations when it comes to using them for business.  And this isn’t just a hardware discussion, although there are some key hardware differences.

1.  Operating System

The first large difference that has to be addressed is the operating system.  And the operating system is dramatically impacted depending on what the tablet is used for.  Consumer tablets are for browsing, running little apps, games, and generally “light-weight” work. 

Originally Posted by Kristin Bent, CRN

Apple, Lenovo Face Off

There’s no doubt that the iPad has taken the tablet market by storm. Its sprawling collection of apps and eye-catching display have made it the clear-cut winner in the consumer market. And with the bring-your-own-device trend picking up the pace, Apple’s flagship tablet has been inching its way into the hearts of enterprise users, as well.

But, there’s a new tablet in town that may just have what it takes to de-throne the almighty iPad: Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet 2. Running Windows 8 and sporting a long list of security features sure to make IT teams smile, Lenovo’s latest gadget could rise to become the ultimate business-ready tablet.

Here’s how it shapes up against the iPad.

“If the MacBook Air is a porcelain doll, the X1 Carbon
is a G.I. Joe strapped with Kevlar.” – Gizmodo

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Check out the infographic below to see how the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and MacBook Air stack up against each other.

Which is better? You decide.

Originally posted by Gavin O’Hara, Lenovo Blogs

Prep the smoke machines. ThinkPad X1 Carbon—impossibly tough, improbably thin and injected with pure rock-and-roll swagger—has landed.

Here’s what you need to know–we present three numbers that matter in the world of Carbon.

At more and more organizations, mobility is driving the need for desktop virtualization. This is largely due to what Linda Tucci, senior news writer at TechTarget, describes as “the growing appetite for using smartphones and tablets to access desktops remotely—even if only in a pinch and only for limited use.”

In “CIOs Sell Enterprise Desktop Virtualization with Mobility,” Tucci quotes David Johnson, senior analyst at Forrester Research: “‘I can’t quantify it, but there is a link…Mobility is a tipping-point issue for desktop virtualization.’”

Bryant University is a student-centered university focused on academic excellence that prepares its students to achieve their personal best in life and their chosen profession.  As part of their ongoing commitment to innovation, Bryant launched a pilot program with Lenovo to focus on improving student learning through tablet PC integration.

Despite the accessibility and cost-effectiveness cloud computing offers higher education, most colleges and universities have taken a conservative approach when it comes to actual investments in the cloud.

According to a survey of 496 campus IT leaders by the Campus Computing Project, more than two-thirds of colleges have outsourced student email to cloud providers. And yet, conversion rates for faculty email and other office applications are much lower. What’s more, deployment of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and learning management systems (LMS) to the cloud has not yet exceeded 5%.

Just as tablet sales in the consumer market have skyrocketed, data shows that adoption of tablets in government agencies will continue to increase, creating productivity improvements along the way.

Government technology information resource MeriTalk predicts that seven percent of all federal workers will be using tablets by the end of 2012, and it expects the number to increase to 19 percent by the end of 2013. But unlike the consumer market—where the tablet is primarily used to access movies, games and other entertainment—the key driver of tablet adoption in government agencies is improved employee productivity.

When you get a new laptop or tablet, you want it to start quickly and give you fast access to all the applications you need—and you want your applications to be highly responsive.

The foundation for fast, high-performing mobile devices is an optimized corporate image. This can be created and managed in-house, but the do-it-yourself (DIY) approach is expensive, inefficient and prone to the kind of errors that result in excessive help-desk calls and frustrating productivity losses.