"Trust us", says ThinkPad creator

Arimasa Naitoh, the inventor of the ThinkPad and the VP of Development for Lenovo's worldwide notebook division, has moved to quell fears that the sale of IBM's PC division to China-based Lenovo would result in a reduction in quality levels.

The original ThinkPad -- the 700C -- was created by Naitoh's team at IBM and introduced to the market in 1992. Successive ThinkPad releases cemented the brand as a notebook institution, garnering a reputation of quality and durability.

Since the sale of IBM's PC division to Lenovo in May 2005, some have begun to question whether the ThinkPad's quality standards will be maintained.

"[One] user concern is, because Lenovo is a Chinese company, they will [produce] cheap stuff and put the Lenovo logo on top of it," Naitoh said at a press conference this morning.

Naitoh utterly refutes this claim, promising that the design and manufacturing process will remain largely unchanged, and that the bulk of ThinkPad design will occur at the Yamato Laboratory in Japan.

"We will continue to develop the ThinkPad as we have been doing, so please don't worry; trust us.

"Lenovo Corporation well understands the importance of keeping research people in other areas of the world, not just in China."