Server buyers ask Lenovo for made-in-Mexico models instead of Chinese kit
- Reference: 1599727687
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/10/lenovo_nutanix/
- Source link:
So says Nutanix senior veep and head of Asia Pacific and Japan Matt Young, who in conversation with The Register today said he’s aware of buyers in India who’ve made the request.
Security suspicions are one reason some buyers prefer Mexican kit. Another is that some imports from China have languished on Indian docks for rather longer than imports from other nations.
Young said Lenovo “will go out of its way to make sure the customer is happy” and is happy to comply with such requests because it has factories in Mexico and elsewhere that can crank out kit buyers feel does not present extra risks of any sort.
The Register has asked Lenovo it if is aware of such requests and is willing to accommodate them. The vendor declined to respond to our requests by the time of writing.
The situation doesn’t seem to be hurting either company. Young said [1]Nutanix scored over 40 per cent year-on-year growth over the past quarter in India, despite the pandemic, thanks in part to customer interest in Lenovo servers.
If widespread, this purchasing preference would be another expression of anti-Chinese sentiment that has seen some organisations divest made-in-China products and others decide to only purchase products from other jurisdictions. ®
Get our [2]Tech Resources
[1] https://ir.nutanix.com/company/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Nutanix-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-2020-Financial-Results/default.aspx
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I too am finding it almost impossible to buy products across the board that aren't made in China. Bosch are getting bad at this, and anything that involves moving, non-electronic parts seems doomed to fail sooner rather than later. And personally I'm getting fed up with seeing products stating Designed in [Not China], made in China .
Two words: quality control.
If a product made in China for #famous_brand doesn't pass the quality check it is then reported as destroyed and sold under some Chinese brand. If it passes it's labeled as #famous_brand and sold to foreign devils :)
To be honest, given that China killed twenty Indian soldiers a month or so ago while trying to move a disputed border in their favour it's hardly surprising that Indians are trying to avoid buying from China. Can you imagine what people would be saying or doing if a country killed twenty of our troops in a border skirmish?
Just because your kit isn't made in China, Lenovo is still a Chinese (Hong Kong) company and beholden to the CCP. The Triads ..er..umm...PLA may still kidnap your data if you use it.
Agreed
If you are worried the devices are compromised, Security 101 would tell you that you should assume the alteration is deep enough that having the integration take place in Mexico isn't going to help. You should change vendors. Having said that, you should also insist none of the components were made in China including seemingly innocuous things like connectors. There's no reason to believe the Chinese are not the equals (or even superior) to the NSA in this area:
"The NSA has also developed a set of tiny surveillance electronics dubbed HOWLERMONKEY that hides within computer hardware, such as an ordinary Ethernet port, Appelbaum said. The one pictured above, dubbed FIREWALK, looks no different to a standard RJ45 socket, but can inject data into and slurp any bytes from packets coming through the physical connection automatically, and relay the information back to base via a radio link." from
https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/31/nsa_weapons_catalogue_promises_pwnage_at_the_speed_of_light/?page=2
Also see
https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/29/lenovo_accused_backdoors_intel_ban/
And for the truly worried, once you've received your hopefully "safe" kit, have multiple independent security outfits have a go at it looking for compromises since there are other governments out there that do this kind of stuff.
Re: Agreed
Perhaps, but I'd be skeptical about those two. Not all of the NSA hardware has to actually -work- in order to achieve the desired effect. In fact, I'd hazard to say that the ones that they leak to the press are probably the ones that never actually worked, e.g. the radio link is too unreliable - but they still serve as a useful deterrent against those who might otherwise try to hide stuff from the NSA.
But your point stands, and I'd expect that the Chinese secret service has a hell of a lot more resources than the poor old NSA. The Chinese are well known for inserting chips into your laptops as you enter the country (perhaps a simple keylogger, perhaps something else) and then removing them when you leave.
It's scary that they are departing from western-made technologies even faster than we are trying to boycott theirs. That just feels like a precursor to War, if I have ever felt one.
So made in China, shipped to Mexico, change the label, distribute world wide, problem solved, Lenovo keeps costs down, PRC keeps on spying, allegedly.
"...that has seen some organisations divest made-in-China products "
You know I have been trying to do the same, on a personal basis and it's bloody hard.
Chinese sourced goods seem to be everywhere even with reputable sellers. For example, having been let down with some truly awful drill bits that were Chinese made I decided to go for a set of Bosch ones. I have use their Forstner bits in the past and they are excellent. I can't remember why I didn't get some when I needed some twist bits. However, the bits came and look good and work well. Then I saw a tiny label on the bottom of the box "Made in China". My perceptions of both the bits and Bosch have plummeted. I thought I was getting stuff made in Austria and now it turns out I might have been palmed off with the product of some back-street workshop.
Knowing Bosch's reputation I hope not, but getting stuff made In China is not what I want both for quality and political reasons.