The Dell drama behind the change at Lenovo

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 21, 2005

The word from China is that Steve Ward is out as head of Lenovo, and Bill Amelio is in, says Bruce Einhorn, our tech correpondent based in Hong Kong. Ward once headed IBM’s PC division and had served as Lenovo’s CEO since the Chinese company bought the ThinkPad juggernaut. Amelio, meanwhile, has been Dell’s Asia-Pacific boss for the past four years.

A big loss for Dell? Well, it appears Amelio was already getting shoved out of the picture—at least judging by the official Dell bios on the company Web site. For months now he has been sharing the Asia-Pacific post with Steve Felice, who had headed Dell’s corporate business group before being dispatched to Singapore this year.

And Felice had the upper hand. Felice’s official Dell bio says that he “leads Dell’s operations throughout the region, including manufacturing and customer service centers in Penang, Malaysia, and Xiamen, China.” No mention of Felice sharing the job with anybody else.

Compare that to Amelio’s bio. It’s almost identical but for a few crucial words: “Together with Steve Felice, Mr. Amelio leads Dell’s operations throughout the region, including manufacturing and customer-service centers in Penang, Malaysia, and Xiamen, China.”

Dell says Amelio was to be transferred to another job. Still, it might be worth checking out the official bios of Michael Dell or Kevin Rollins. Judging by the China drama, if there are changes coming at Dell, the bios provide previews.