Sure, its revenue is quite high, but IBM's pc division has consistently LOST money recently. Actually, the just recently available profit reports for 2004 showed IBM PC with a profit, although that news has been greatly suppressed recently. However here's one story on Business Week:
If sold, IBM's $12 billion PC unit is expected to fetch somewhere between $1 billion to $2 billion. In the first nine months of this year, the PC group reported a $70 million pretax profit on $9.4 billion in sales.
It's a perfect time for the Chinese to enter the market in such a huge way, with the uncertainty at HP after the Fiorina firing, and we also have an increasing demand for PC's worldwide right now:
Worldwide growth in PC sales in the third quarter of 2004 reached nearly 12 percent, driven in large part by strong commercial demand, according to tech research firm IDC.
The lone possible bright spot, if the deal is approved, is that many large corporate customers may turn their nose on the new IBM/China partnership. From Merrill Lynch:
a Merrill Lynch survey published this week, in which 45 out of 100 chief information officers surveyed said they will consider switching PC vendors as a result of the Lenovo-IBM deal.
And reports from Dell:
The founder and chairman of US computer group Dell said Thursday his company has benefited from news that rival IBM had decided to to sell its personal computer unit to the Chinese Lenovo Group. "The reaction so far seems to be that we are getting more increase from customers who were previous customers (of IBM)"