LANDesk tightens partnership with Lenovo

Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM’s laptop wing in May, has strengthened its ties with LANDesk, a provider of system and security management software, officials from both companies announced Tuesday.

The two companies will create joint marketing plans and sell co-branded products, said David Taylor, LANDesk’s vice president for worldwide marketing.

The relationship goes beyond product bundling, Taylor said. The two companies jointly fund two Innovation Centers, one outside Raleigh, N.C., and the other in Beijing, where engineers from both companies work to integrate their products.

A goal for the centers is making LANDesk’s software better manage Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies (TVT’s), said Heather Engen, Lenovo’s marketing project manager for TVTs. TVT’s are a suite of tools that automate IT functions to save customers’ IT staff members time and money, she said.

For example, the Access Control TVT enables IT managers the ability to push an enterprisewide policy to all machines on the network and ensure that only compliant machines are allowed on the network, Taylor said.

TVT’s distinguish Lenovo’s laptops from their competitors because they decrease total cost of ownership, Engen said.

Lenovo will suggest that its customers use LANDesk applications to manage their systems, Engen said. “We know that LANDesk is best in class and that’s why we’ve chosen to partner with them,” she said.