We (the US) allows IBM to sell its PC Division to China which becomes Lenovo, and you are now somehow surprised something like this happens? Failure to retain a comparative advantage in global free trade policy has many downsides. I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg.
hollerith|10 years ago
"Strategic advantage" would be a better fit for your comment.
The majority of the profit from the sale of Windows PCs goes to Microsoft because everything in the PC besides the operating system are "commodities", meaning they are available from multiple suppliers who must compete with each other. (Actually Intel might be taking a significant fraction of the profits, too; I'm not sure.) Lenovo wants to become more than a supplier of a commodity because in a mature, shrinking market, there is little profit in supplying a commodity, and it is being clumsy and ham-handed about it, which annoys their customers.
I don't see how this is a danger to the US. If Lenovo persists in being clumsy, customers will simply shift to other suppliers. This is not a social crisis; this is just a relative newcomer to the game who did pretty well when the market was expanding and is not responding well to the end of the expansion.