Lenovo Joins IBM in “Microsoft-Free” Program

According to an Information Week article released today, Lenovo, the fourth largest computer maker in the world, is joining IBM to produce a “Microsoft Free” software client. Soon, Lenovo could be rolling out PCs without Windows on their machines.

The software package at hand will include IBM’s Lotus Notes as well as Lotus Symphony email and desktop productivity suite which run on open-source Linux. IBM announced this Microsoft-free client in early 2008 for its European consumers and then expanded it to the US market on Tuesday.

According to several analysts, if Lenovo decides to team with IBM on this venture, this could pose a serious threat to Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop market. The interesting catch to this is a “Windows free” IBM open source client will cost half of what a Windows client would cost causing a big stir in the PC consumer market, specifically in this cash-strapped economy.