Leaderboard

Lenovo said on Thursday that it would pay $2.3 billion for IBM’s low-end server business, successfully concluding a deal that had fizzled a year earlier after the two parties failed to agree on a price. Lenovo said it would settle the transaction with $2 billion in cash and the balance in its own Hong Kong-listed shares. About 7,500 IBM employees in locations including Raleigh, N.C., Shanghai and Shenzhen in China, and Taipei, Taiwan, were expected to be offered employment by Lenovo, the Chinese company said in a statement. “With the right strategy, great execution, continued innovation and a clear commitment to the x86 industry, we are confident that we can grow this business successfully for the long-term, just as we have done with our worldwide PC business,” Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement, referring to the server industry. Early last year, Lenovo and IBM were in negotiations about the unit, which includes IBM’s x86 server business. At the time, Lenovo valued the unit at about $2.5 billion, while IBM wanted at least $4 billion. IBM restarted talks with interested parties recently. Dell and Fujitsu were among the other bidders. But because Lenovo had already taken a close look at the business last year, it was able to quickly make an offer that IBM was comfortable with. Lenovo bought IBM’s ThinkPad personal computer business in 2005 for $1.75 billion. source : http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/lenovo-buys-ibm-server-business-for-2-3-billion/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 after laptop now server business sold to lenovo again

Hello, My background is in Simulation programming, and after a while in this industry I want to change. I have done a bit of GIS programming in my work, as visualisation is important in simulation I've written DEM importers and 3D visualisers, etc. I have even used ESRI ArcMap a few times many years ago but nothing recently. I've mainly used C# and C++, but have done not much web based. I have always enjoyed the geographic elements of programming which is why I want to get more into "GIS". I would like to also do field work. I resent being behind a computer so much and want to be outdoors more. A 50/50 split I think would be ideal. Over here in the UK I check out the jobsites but there is not too much GIS work about, especially not in my domain. I'm not sure where I would fit in but I expect I will have to move to another country. Given these desires (field work, GIS) what role might I fit into, how could I progress towards obtaining this role?