WSJ’s Survey on Lenovo

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Juro Osawa and Lorraine Luk, 中国科技巨头联想集团成长史. 华尔街日报中文版, Jan 31, 2014
http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20140131/tec112442.asp

, which is translated from

Juro Osawa and Lorraine Luk, How China Built Its Own Tech Power. A Legend Grows l After forging a PC leader, Lenovo is moving into smartphones and servers. Wall Street Journal, Jan 31, 2014
stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-440957/

Quote:

"China made up 41% of its $18.56 billion in sales for the six months ended Sept 30, the latest figures available.

"When Lenovo bought IBM’s PC business, Mr Yang [Yuanqing, Lenovo's current CEO,] spoke little English, according to other Lenovo employees. To force himself to study it, Mr Yang made English Lenovo’s official language and moved with his family to North Carolina to work closely with IBM’s PC executives. His English has improved dramatically since and Mr. Yang conducts analyst conference calls and foreign media interviews entirely in English.

"In many ways, Lenovo is a model of what the Chinese government says it ultimately wants from the country’s companies. * * * And though Lenovo still has government funding, through a major shareholder of its biggest investor, it differs significantly from the massive state-owned enterprises—or SOEs * * * The company started out as New Technology Developer Inc 新科技研发公司, a small tech venture founded with seed money of just $25,000 from the state-owned Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Mr Yang said in a recent interview that he doesn’t consider Lenovo a Chinese company, citing the diversity of its management team and shareholders.

"Lenovo in years past also benefited from government rules preventing foreign computer makers from setting up distribution systems in China, according to a study last year by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a U.S think tank that focuses on security issues.


Note:
(a) survey (n; Middle English, from Anglo-French surveer, to look over, from sur- [Anglo-French, from Latin super-
] “over or above” + [Anglo-French verb, from Latin vidēre] veer "to see" — more at VIEW):
“a broad treatment of a subject”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/survey
(b) The subtitle of the English report ("Legend") plays on the former name of Lenovo, as shown in paragraph 1 : "China’s Lenovo Group Ltd, once known as Legend, grew from a tiny government-funded venture in the 1980s to a global powerhouse that last year became the No. 1 personal-computer maker in the world."