Lenovo to Sell Avocor – This Could Be Great or Bad
At Enterprise Connect, Avocor announced an alliance with Lenovo that will sell Avocor displays across all of Lenovo’s campuses, but they will also sell the Avocor product via its Vendor Label Hardware Program. This is not good news for AV integrators. Lenovo is not known for value-add selling of third-party hardware. Theoretically, they do have a very limited potential as they only target Lenovo existing users.
In my opinion, this could go either way — could be good for AV or could be bad for AV. On the one hand, Lenovo is NOT known as a value-add kind of company so they could sell based primarily on price — but that also means they aren’t likely to sell it as a “system” product, either. On the other, hand Lenovo, in 2018 (according to Statista), was the global computer sales leader so they could bring giant-sized awareness to the AV industry — and the collaboration board market, specifically.
In announcing the partnership, Joe Mingori, executive director, WW Lenovo Smart Office Business Group said, “Lenovo is committed to be a leader in smart office technology and help define these collaborative workspaces through innovative solutions that solve customer problems. Avocor’s strategic vision and its collaboration displays with the Lenovo Smart Office portfolio is a major step in making technology seamless to use, which enables teams to focus on driving better engagement and enabling smarter business.”
Apparently, Avocor and Lenovo are also working to co-develop solutions for collaboration spaces and will also include Avocor’s existing E series, F series and the new Windows collaboration displays by Avocor — capable of both room and device monitoring through its Azure IoT sensors.
Avocor and Lenovo are currently validating equipment to provide guidance to Enterprise clients about matching the interactive display with compute for each environment, from conference rooms to executive offices to huddle and casual spaces.
Avocor GM Dana Corey notes, “The collaboration with Lenovo is in line with Avocor’s focus to develop the most innovative products in the collaborative display and smart office space and to get them to work seamlessly with the best and most effective UC hardware and software tools.”
More details will eventually be posted here.