Lenovo Launches Four Xeon Servers

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Lenovo's ThinkServer Tower

Lenovo on Tuesday introduced four ThinkServers, offering small and midsize businesses built-in virtualization, new power-saving features, and several choices of Intel Xeon 5500 series processors.

The business systems include two tower models, the TD200 and TD200x, and two rack servers, the RD210 and RD220.

Because of the new Xeon chips, the latest ThinkServers are capable of tripling the speed of their predcessors, according to Lenovo. The dual-socket systems suppport up to 128 GB of DDR3 system memory and up to 12 hard drive bays in the rack models and 16 bays in the towers.

The servers are "virtualization ready," meaning they are available with a choice of virtualization technology from Microsoft, Novell, VMWare or Red Hat pre-installed. With the expanded memory and storage capacity, the latest computers can be used to consolidate applications running on several legacy servers into one system.

Power-saving features include the option of using low-wattage processors and memory, along with small form-factor hard drives. The ThinkServers' power supplies are more than 92% efficient, according to Lenovo.

Lenovo includes its Integrated Management Module with ThinkServers, which has a Web interface that can be used to access servers even when they have crashed or have been turned off. Lenovo also offers a premium version of the management software.

The RD210 and RD220 are available for a starting price of $1,699 and $2,199, respectively. The TD200 and TD200x are scheduled for release in July. The TD200 will only be available through Lenovo for a special bid. The TD200x will sell for a starting price of $2,699.

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Lenovo's RD210 Rack Server

Lenovo introduced the ThinkServer line in September 2008, marking the first time the company sold servers outside of its Chinese homeland. Lenovo markets the systems to SMBs with up to 500 employees.

Lenovo believes it can sell servers to the 80-90% of SMBs currently not using them. For bait, Lenovo is offering easy-to-use software as well as competitive pricing and services.

Lenovo also is banking on the strength of its Think brand, which includes its ThinkPad notebooks popular in businesses. Lenovo's biggest competitors include Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
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