iFixit

Supply chain sources tell the Korea Economic Daily, the Chosun Ilbo and Reuters that Apple has been reducing its component orders to Samsung. While it continues to rely on Samsung for some iOS device parts, Apple has opted not to use it as a key supplier of the memory chips and displays for its next-generation iPhone. Instead, it has turned to Toshiba, SK Hynix and Elpida Memory for memory chips, and to LG Display for liquid crystal displays.

“Samsung is still in the list of initial memory chip suppliers,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. “But Apple orders have been trending down.”

What’s behind that trend? Well, that’s not entirely clear. A move away from Samsung is certainly in line with Apple’s stated plans to widen its supply chain. A diversified supply chain minimizes operational risk and comes in handy during unforeseen calamities, as we saw following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

That said, it’s hard not to think that Apple’s legal brawl with Samsung isn’t playing some sort of role here. Cutting back component orders for a device like the next-generation iPhone could cause Samsung a bit of bottom-line pain, particularly if it ends up stuck with excess component inventory. What better way to undercut a fierce rival than to disrupt a key and well-established revenue stream?

Samsung and Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

(Image courtesy iFixit)

Toshiba Satellite U925t

The most notable is probably the one that’s already out of the bag, as it was unveiled yesterday: The Toshiba Satellite U925t Ultrabook convertible, with its slide-out display that lies flat against the keyboard to transform into a tablet. (The display is then exposed on top of the laptop, which makes me think it could get scratched easily, but Toshiba says it’s made with Corning Gorilla Glass to protect the display.)

The Satellite U925t weighs 3.2 pounds, is .78 inches thin and has a 12.5-inch diagonal HD touchscreen display. Running on a third-generation Intel Core i5 processor, it’s got front- and rear-facing cameras, two USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port, and comes with a 128 gigabyte solid state drive. And, of course, it is running Windows 8.

Toshiba is also launching a Windows 8 version of its extra-widescreen laptop, the U845W, which has a 14.4-inch screen with a 21 x 9 aspect ratio for widescreen media viewing and multitasking, the idea being that two browser windows or applications can be viewed side by side. That one weighs 3.5 pounds and also runs on a third-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor. The version running Windows 7 is already available on the market for $999.

The Satellite U945 brings an Ultrabook to the mix, while the Satellite P845t has a traditional clamshell form factor with a Windows 8-friendly touchscreen display. The LX835 is Toshiba’s new, 23-inch all-in-one, with a full HD, 1080p-resolution touchscreen and optional built-in TV tuner.

The product announcements come just a couple weeks after Toshiba said it was scrapping its plans for a Windows RT tablet and notebook, due to delays in the supply chain.

All of these products come to market Oct. 26, when Windows 8 launches, and while Toshiba hasn’t given exact price points yet, they’ll be pretty much in line with some earlier models, Toshiba says. The U925t will probably cost slightly more than the $1,000 price point of the U845; the LX835 all-in-one is also expected to cost north of $1,000.

A Toshiba representative said that the plan to launch Windows RT products changed “due to delayed components that would make a timely launch impossible,” adding that “for the time being, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 products to market.”

Toshiba had shared several designs ahead of the Computex trade show, including a Windows RT tablet with attachable keyboard and a second clamshell Windows RT notebook model. Both products were designed to work with Texas Instruments processors. Toshiba wouldn’t say if it was TI that was responsible for the delay.

“For confidentiality reasons, we cannot share any information on which vendor’s component has been delayed,” a Toshiba representative told AllThingsD.

The move comes after Microsoft announced plans for its own Windows RT-based tablet, known as Surface. Toshiba said Microsoft’s announcement of the Surface was not related to Toshiba’s decision to scrap its Windows RT products.

Microsoft has acknowledged the risk that its tablet could alienate its PC-making partners.

Toshiba’s decision was reported earlier on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.

Assuming the settlement is approved, AU Optronics will pay $170 million in damages; Toshiba will pay $21 million. LG Display will fork over the largest sum among its fellow defendants: $380 million in damages.

Taken together with the $535 million settlement won from seven other display makers in a similar case last year, these new settlements raise the combined damages recovered in the case to more than $1 billion. That makes it the largest consumer class-action price-fixing settlement ever — again, assuming it is approved.

For their part, LG Display and Toshiba continue to deny the allegations brought against them, saying they agreed to settlements only to avoid further expenses and protracted litigation. AU Optronics didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

People with knowledge of Samsung’s plans tell Bloomberg that the Korean hardware giant will introduce an ARM-based tablet running Windows RT when Microsoft releases the operating system, most likely in October. The device is expected to run a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Beyond that, few details are known.

For Samsung, which has had some bad luck with its Android tablets lately — specifically an injunction against U.S. sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 — a move to embrace Windows RT was inevitable.

Why not cast your lot with Microsoft as well, and hope that the company is able to replicate its desktop OS market share in the tablet space? Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Google has no real desktop OS market share to leverage here. And Android’s mounting patent issues are clearly becoming a big concern.

Not that peddling a Windows RT tablet will be all that much easier. In doing so, Samsung will be competing directly with Microsoft, which has developed a Windows RT tablet of its own, called Surface. It will also be going head to head with Asus, Dell and Toshiba, who are all expected to debut similar offerings, all at the same time.

The news was reported by CNET earlier this month, with additional details, including the cost, trickling out in recent days. Our sources confirm that Microsoft will offer $15 Windows Pro 8 upgrades to those buying a new PC with Windows 7 Home Basic or higher.

Redmond has offered these kinds of coupons with the past several releases, so it is not a shocker.

But with Windows 8 coming this fall — possibly as late as November — and with current license sales slowing, and Microsoft losing share to both Macs and iPads, the upgrade program could be even more important this time around.

Redmond and the PC makers are hoping that the promise of a guaranteed and easy upgrade will convince back-to-school shoppers to stick with Windows, rather than head to the competition.

The upgrade program is important for another reason: Microsoft needs Windows 8 to get off to a fast start in order to convince developers to write new Metro-style apps that only run on Windows 8. Getting more Windows 7 users on the new operating system would help that cause.

A big change this time around is how the program will operate. In the past, Microsoft has been the driving force behind the cheap upgrades, but the company left it up to computer makers to handle the specific pricing, timing and fulfillment. With Windows 8, Microsoft will handle all of those items, sources say.

Microsoft declined to comment on its upgrade program plans.

The other piece of preparing for Windows 8 is what is taking place on the hardware side. Windows 8, with its Metro user interface, is tailor-made for touch devices, though it will also work with a keyboard and mouse.

So far, this summer’s laptop offerings are punched-up versions of the same PCs that have been on the market for months, with upgrades to Intel’s Ivy Bridge chip line, and PC makers all trying to put their stamp on the trend toward thinner, lighter laptops.

Lenovo has announced more consumer-friendly versions of its business-minded ThinkPad laptop. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, has expanded its Ultrabook line and has slapped the term “Sleekbooks” on another set of new laptops that fall into the ultra-thin-and-lightweight category but have innards that don’t meet Intel’s specifications for Ultrabooks. Sony’s new Ivy Bridge-equipped Vaio laptops will be made with lightweight materials, include larger displays, and offer optional accessories such as an extended battery.

But PC makers will clearly be gearing up for Windows 8 so that they can start pitching the new operating system as soon as it is ready.

This fall, some hardware makers will introduce convertible PCs that function as both tablets and laptops, as noted here, or will add things like touch sensors to existing displays, in order to bridge the two operating systems.

One company that has already announced a Windows 8 laptop is Lenovo. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January of this year, the China-based PC maker showed off the IdeaPad Yoga, a laptop with a 10-finger touchscreen and a full range of motion at the hinge so when fully folded it turns into a 13.3.-inch tablet.

Overall, one can expect a lot of Windows 8-ready machines to be part of the back-to-school lineups. But expect most PC makers to hold off on design overhauls for the Windows 8 launch.

That funding round, I’ve since learned, was so oversubscribed that it reached $80 million and now includes a significant new investor: GE Asset Management. A filing is expected with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.

GE Asset Management is joining a funding round that includes strategic stakes from Toshiba, the Japanese chip and electronics maker, and networking gear player Juniper Networks as well as Highland Capital and SAP Ventures, the investment arm of German software giant SAP.

The funding is Violin’s latest step toward filing for an initial public offering. Violin CEO Don Basile told me that the company has selected four banks to work with on the offering, following the bake-off process we mentioned last month: J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill-Lynch and Barclay’s, confirming a report from Bloomberg News last month.

Basile told me that he expects Violin’s road show will take place during the summer and that the company is now well within what he says is a 180-day window during which it will go public. That would place the offering no later than October 27.

It would make Violin the second company using flash memory in the data center to go public within roughly a year. Fusion-IO went public last June in a successful offering that boosted the company’s valuation above $2 billion.

And if the interest of pre-IPO investors is any indication, and it often is, Violin’s public offering, whenever it finally does occur, should prove popular.

Toshiba’s new Excite line, which the Japanese electronics maker is officially announcing today, will include 7.7-inch, 10-inch and 13-inch models. All three Wi-Fi-only tablets are running Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system; they are aluminum-encased, have Gorilla Glass displays, come with a five-megapixel rear camera and a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and include new Nvidia TegraTM 3 processors.

The Excite 7.7 also has an AMOLED display, a micro-USB port and a micro-SD card slot; while the Excite 10 has an LED-backlit display, micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports, and a full-sized SD card slot. At 1.32 pounds, the new 10-inch weighs just slightly less than Toshiba’s last tablet.

Most interesting might be Toshiba’s 13-inch entrant into the tablet market. The device has a 13.3-inch diagonal LED-backlit display and weighs 2.2 pounds. At first glance, it looks gigantic, but it isn’t really meant to be a take-it-with-you tablet. Toshiba’s aiming this one at tablet users who rarely, if ever, use their devices out of the home; the computer maker has said it envisions the Excite 13 as a kitchen-counter or coffee-table device.

The Excite 10 will hit the market on May 6, priced at $450 for a 16 gigabyte model — still $50 less than the starting price of the new LTE iPad — while the Exite 7.7 and Excite 13 tablets will go on sale June 10. Those base models will cost $500 and $650, respectively.

And at that point, Toshiba’s Thrive tablets will go away.

Toshiba first introduced its Thrive tablet in July of last year, and attempted to set its product apart from the iPad by incorporating some features one might expect on a PC. As AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg pointed out in his review of the Thrive, the 10-inch Android tablet came with a full-sized USB port and HDMI port, a removable battery and a full-sized SD slot for flash-memory cards. Its base model originally cost $430 at launch, though Toshiba later lowered the price.

In September, Toshiba introduced the 7-inch version of the Thrive, again with easy connectivity through other devices, though with micro-versions of the USB, HDMI and SD card ports. That product just came to market in late 2011.

In addition to the new tablets, Toshiba is also introducing a redesigned HD All-in-One desktop computer, two new Qosmio gaming laptops, and a stable of upgraded laptops from the Satellite P and Satellite S series, as well as new, slightly lower-priced Satellite L and Satellite C Series laptops.

The funding round includes strategic stakes from Toshiba, the Japanese chip and electronics maker; networking concern Juniper Networks; and funding from new investors, including Highland Capital and SAP Ventures, the investment arm of German software giant SAP.

Violin CEO Don Basile also told me today that the company is in the process of picking bankers that will likely lead it to an initial public offering before the end of 2012. “We had our final bake-off last week,” he told me, though he didn’t disclose who had won it.

That Violin was raising capital was disclosed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A formal announcement on the funding will come Monday.

Violin has been growing pretty aggressively in recent months. Basile told me that the company now has 320 employees, up from 50 in the last six months. It has been building up a global sales force with 40 people working in Europe and the Middle east. That team is run by Garry Veale, the former head of HP’s Storageworks operation in Europe. Earlier this month it hired Martin Darling, a former EMC sales exec to run its sales team in Asia.

Basile says the investment will be used press down on the gas pedal and keep growing, but also to look seriously at an IPO before the end of 2012. “The funding gives us the means to grow as a private company, but also to look at the public markets if the conditions are right,” he said. “It’s more likely than not that we’ll be a public company by the end of the calendar year.”

Narayan Venkat has joined Violin as VP of product management. He spent just a bit more than a year at VMware, where he led its storage initiatives. His resume includes time at chip companies including LSI and Intel.

At Violin, he’ll be in charge of pushing Violin’s flash technology into the data center. As I told you last summer, when Violin raised $40 million from Toshiba and Juniper Networks and several individuals, its flash arrays run faster than old-school storage arrays, while reducing both the physical footprint needed for the hardware and the power consumption. Hewlett-Packard resells its gear, and AOL is a big customer.

“Flash is the biggest disruption in the data center to come along in years,” Venkat told me. Violin’s last big hire was its CTO, Jonathan Goldick, who also came from LSI.

That, however, is starting to change.

With the market increasingly global — and overseas players impinging on its domestic market, Fujitsu is looking overseas. And when it looks, it sees North America as the place it would most like to be.

“North America is our priority market,” Senior Executive Vice President Hideyuki Saso said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show. Fujitsu is also in the process of reacquiring full control of a mobile joint venture that had paired it with Toshiba in the phone business.

Fujitsu, which makes both Android and Windows Phone devices in Japan, isn’t quite sure what market niche it will target, but it is sure it doesn’t want to be just one among the smartphone masses.

“If we try to do same thing as how our competitors because of the competition, it is going to be tough,” Saso said via a translator. “We would like to identify the right way of entering the North American market that would make use of our technology and expertise to make a steady landing.”

Timing is also uncertain, though Saso said the company hopes it will be either later this year or next year. The key, he said, is to figure out where it can stand out from the pack.

“We don’t want to be just another mobile phone,” he said, “We want to be special.”

While the U.S. smartphone market is already crowded, Saso said Fujitsu has several strenghts it can draw on, including a wide range of thin, yet durable and waterproof models. Though not yet a player here, Fujitsu boasts it has the thinnest smartphone approved by the FCC for use in the U.S.

In making its phones waterproof, Saso said, the company had to also make them tough.

“For us to achieve this waterproof (capability), we also had to look at durability again, the rigidness and the toughness,” he said, banging a large pen on the phone’s screen for emphasis.

Fujitsu also has the noise cancellation used in a Formula One vehicle it sponsors — a position that explains the presence of the race car in its CES booth.

All of those, Saso says, could form the basis of Fujitsu’s entry, though the company is still evaluating its product options. Another approach would be to offer a phone similar to the Raku Raku (“easy easy”) phone it offers in Japan — a basic phone, aimed at seniors, that mixes in enhanced calling and health diagnostics such as heart rate, calorie and fat intake, and exercise. Fujitsu has sold 20 million of the devices in Japan.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

One of LG's new Cinema 3-D Smart TVs: Glasses still required.

LG Electronics is no exception to the trend, as the company today unveiled a new line of high-resolution 3-D TVs — part of its Smart TV line — and a 3-D TV with an 84-inch screen.

But what about that glasses-free 3-D? It may come sooner than previously expected, says Seog-ho Ro, LG’s head of global strategy for home entertainment. LG already sells a not-exactly-cheap, 20-inch, glasses-free 3-D monitor and will display another small 3-D screen this week at the annual tech show in Las Vegas.

The company tells AllThingsD that it will have a 55-inch pilot version of its glasses-free 3-D display technology ready for 2013 and hopes to bring it to market by 2014. While it’s too early to know an exact price point, LG confirmed that it will be “expensive,” despite the fact that the company considers its current 3-D TV line to be cost competitive.

Toshiba, which has brought glasses-free 3-D gaming to laptops, has also confirmed that it plans to make “big” glasses-free 3-D TV screens available in the U.S. sometime early this year.

Because of technical obstacles, glasses-free 3-D TV has been relatively slow coming to large screens — it can be hard to experience the 3-D effects from viewing angles other than directly in front of the screen.

Until glasses-free, or autostereoscopic, 3-D becomes mainstream, companies are looking to convince consumers that 3-D glasses really aren’t all that bad (we’ll let consumers speak for themselves on that). LG, for instance, is pushing its new “passive” 3-D glasses that are 20 percent lighter than previous versions and can snap on the front of regular spectacles. LG says it has realized that consumers don’t want to pay for relatively expensive active-shutter 3-D glasses and that it is “getting aggressive about passive.”

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

The New York Times published something of an exit interview with Palmisano over the weekend. It read a bit like a victory lap, and that’s not undeserved. The record books will show that IBM shares during the Palmisano era (2003-2011) rose by 125 percent; sales grew from $81 billion in 2002 to an expected $107 billion; and annual profits on a per-share basis went from $3.07 to a consensus forecast of $13.38.

But it got me to thinking about one of the highlights of the Palmisano era; one that generated a great deal of attention at the time: IBM’s decision to sell its personal computer division to Lenovo, the Chinese PC maker. It was a relatively small deal, worth less than $2 billion at the time, but it was a controversial move. Despite the fact that IBM wasn’t making much money on the business, IBM PCs, especially its ThinkPad line of notebooks, were generally considered to be pretty good.

Nearly seven years later, it’s worth noting that Lenovo is now the world’s second-largest PC vendor, behind Hewlett-Packard, having vaulted past Dell earlier this year, according to the market research firm IDC. It’s also worth noting that Lenovo is in fifth place in the U.S., behind HP, Dell, Apple and Toshiba, in that order.

IBM initially owned 15 percent of Lenovo and maintained a stake in that company until February of this year, when it sold its remaining 4.3 percent shares at a profit of more than a quarter-billion dollars.

Lenovo’s biggest shareholder is Legend Holdings, of which 36 percent is owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a.k.a. CAS Holdings, a state-controlled entity. The state has pared back its stake, though: When the IBM-Lenovo deal was announced in 2005, Lenovo was 57 percent state-owned.

There was a lot of natural controversy, and even national security concerns in 2005, about selling so red-blooded an American product as the IBM PC to China. But there was also a solid business case to consider. The PC business was a drag on earnings because of downward price pressure exerted by Dell and all the others, and it wasn’t even leading the market, as was the case with Hewlett-Packard, which engaged in some very public contemplation about spinning off its own PC division.

But there was also a potential strategic benefit, which Michael Useem, a professor a the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Management, pointed out at the time: Making friends with China.

By selling an underperforming asset to a buyer willing to take it and run with it, IBM got solid access to the exploding Chinese market. In paraphrased remarks to the Times, Palmisano concedes the point:

Palmisano says he deflected overtures from Dell and private equity firms, preferring the sale to a company in China for strategic reasons: the Chinese government wants its corporations to expand globally, and by aiding that national goal, IBM enhanced its stature in the lucrative Chinese market, where the government still steers business.

So how has that worked out? It’s a little hard to tell from reading Big Blue’s Byzantine financial statements. In fiscal 2005, the year the deal closed, IBM reported $18.6 billion, or about 20 percent of revenue, came from the Asia-Pacific region, including China.

And though it declined to provide specific dollar amounts, it said that year that sales in China had dropped by 19 percent, but after after stripping out the PC division, would have grown by 8 percent.

For the first nine months of fiscal 2011, IBM reported that the Asia-Pacific region accounted for exactly the same dollar figure — $18.6 billion — amounting to 24 percent of its overall sales of $77.4 billion, and there’s still a quarter to go. That would put Asia on track to account for a little less than a quarter of IBM’s revenue.

In its earnings statement, IBM also makes a point of calling attention to what it calls “growth markets,” which are generally the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China. These markets combined for 23 percent of sales in IBM’s most recent quarter.

This is about as close to understanding the size of IBM’s business in China as we’re going to get. On balance, it looks to have been a positive move, especially when you consider that if IBM had kept its PC division, it would have likely only gotten smaller and become more of a profit drag on a company that’s increasingly focused on high-margin businesses like services and consulting.

Nor can we judge by IBM’s headcount. Globally, as of the publication of its last annual report, IBM employed 426,751 people. But it has stopped providing a geographical breakdown. A report in the Times of India in 2010, mentioned by The Wall Street Journal, suggested that Big Blue’s headcount in India might be as high as 130,000; which, if true, would make it one of that country’s top 10 employers.

There is no question that IBM’s presence in China has grown. You can tell by the press releases. There was for example, a new IBM Research lab in Shanghai in 2008, and another in 2010. Just last month, IBM announced that it had closed a significant IT deal for a major health-care provider in Hong Kong, and another with a Chinese province to improve the safety of pork (which included a food-safety video I embedded below).

For better or worse, Palmisano will be remembered as the man who traded PCs for access to China. On balance, it seems to have been a good trade, but the jury is still out.

Tomorrow is the first business day of IBM’s Rometty era. Assuming she retires at age 60, a well-established IBM tradition, she’ll have about six years to make her mark. One wonders what she’ll be remembered for most.

Now — whether you can’t make it to Times Square or just don’t want to — there’s an app for that.

(Obviously!)

First introduced last year, the Times Square Official New Year’s Eve Ball App — 2012 shows a live stream of the Times Square Ball atop One Times Square, as well as video content leading up to and during the event. I’m told there will also be a live stream of Lady Gaga flicking the switch with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, to get the ball rolling, literally, at 11:59 pm ET.

With the app, users can share photos of themselves via Facebook and Twitter. They can also vote on photos — the photos with the most “likes” will be showcased on the giant Toshiba sign in Times Square that night (so if you’re at home partying in your pajamas and snapping self-portraits, you might want to think twice before sending your photos through the app).

The free app runs on iOS and Android devices, and was created by the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, along with Toshiba and Livestream. And because few things are ever truly free, ads will run at the bottom of the app interface.

Last year’s inaugural Times Square New Year’s Eve app was downloaded 174,000 times by users in 163 countries, during a two-week period. An estimated one billion people worldwide watch the ball drop on television each year.

And 30,000 New Year’s Eve kiss photos were sent through last year’s version of the app.

Unless you’re certain you’ll want to use it again a year from now, this one can go on the short-shelf-life list of phone apps. Meanwhile, there are a few other apps you might check out for New Year’s Eve, to ensure the evening goes off without a hitch.

Like Uber, the free iPhone and Android app for calling a car service when all of the taxi cabs are taken. Uber is currently only available in seven cities, including San Francisco, Boston, New York, Seattle and Paris, and the company also sometimes adjusts pricing for holidays, like it did on Halloween this year. Uber has not yet responded to an inquiry about whether prices will go up on New Year’s Eve.

You might also want to check out an app that tempers your holiday wild side, such as the Webroot Sobriety Test app. Or an app that tests your cognitive abilities before you drunk-text, like the $.99 Textalyzer.

Or, for all those good intentions, how about an app not just for making resolutions, but for keeping them, like All My New Year Resolutions?