Abstract:
Lenovo is one of the world's leading personal technology companies, producing innovative PCs and mobile internet devices. While the Lenovo brand came into existence only in 2004, the company has a much longer history.
In 1984 Liu Chuanzhi, with a group of ten engineers, founded the Legend Holdings company with 200,000 RMB (US$25,000) in Beijing, China. The Chinese government approved Lenovo's incorporation on the same day. Each of the founders was a middle-aged member of the Institute of Computing Technology attached to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Their first significant effort, an attempt to import televisions, failed. The group rebuilt itself within a year by conducting quality checks on computers for new buyers. Lenovo soon started developing a circuit board that would allow IBM-compatible personal computers to process Chinese characters. This product was Lenovo's first major success. Lenovo also tried and failed to market a digital watch.
In May 1988, Lenovo placed its first recruitment advertisement. The ad was placed on the front page of the China Youth News. Such ads were quite rare in China then. Out of the 500 respondents, 280 were selected to take a written employment exam. 120 of these candidates were interviewed in person. Although interviewers initially only had authority to hire 16 people, 58 were given offers. The new staff included 18 people with graduate degrees, 37 with undergraduate degrees, and three students with no university-level education. Their average age was 26. Yang Yuanqing, the current CEO of Lenovo, was among that group.
The company was incorporated in Hong Kong in 1988 and would grow to be the largest PC company in China. Legend Holdings changed its name to Lenovo in 2004, this name comes from ‘’LE’’ of Legend and ‘’NOVO’’ from the latin adjective ‘’novus’’.
