The Real Lenovo Laptop Deal

Contrary to the details in the original story, Lenovo will not be preloading Linux on a new Thinkpad. From the article:
The new “Linux-enabled” Lenovo laptop launched this week at LinuxWorld will not actually come “pre-loaded” with Novell SUSE Linux, a high-ranking Lenovo official said today, contradicting some industry reports stating otherwise.
Aggarwal maintained that Lenovo will be the first mobile PC maker to provide full phone support for a Linux laptop. Moreover, all Linux drivers needed for the T60p will be downloadable directly from Lenovo's Web site.
But he told LinuxPlanet that the T60p–an inch-thin, 4.7-pound laptop based on Intel's Centrino Duo processing technology–will be sold with a “blank hard disk.”
Not quite as exciting as the original speculation and certainly not the breakthrough deal for OEM Linux. That being said, it is a step in the right direction and it's good to see proper phone support and Linux drivers available directly from Lenovo. At over $3,000USD for a 14 inch screen though, I don't see this being a big seller in the end. This is another small iterative step in the evolution that will probably realistically take another couple years.
–jeremy
Lenovo, Linux, Thinkpad, Novell, Suse, Open Source