ThinkPad users alert - IBM is selling its PC business

I have been an avid IBM ThinkPad fan since about 1996, I currently own a T40p. Its my fifth ThinkPad. My first one cost over $5,000, I still have it, its been to India twice, all over Europe, and it still runs perfectly.

My ThinkPads have been so great that I even made the dangerous move of recommending a ThinkPad to my parents. I never would have heard the end of it had the machine been unreliable. Fortunately, four years later, its still running.

Once, at an ACM SIGGRAPH conference, an IBM employee saw me hacking away on my ThinkPad, and he came over and gave me a spare red "nubbie" for the trackpoint. It was a sweet moment. He had a big smile on his face and was clearly proud to see his company's little machine in use. I felt proud too.

Dozens of my friends have ThinkPads, and feel the same way. We all love and use our ThinkPads so much that the casing literally wears down to the metal. But they keep on working.

As a technologist, I have tried many other laptops - including Sony, Toshiba, DELL, HP, DEC, Compaq, Mac, big, little, slow, fast, light, expensive, cheap, ...

The ThinkPad is the only laptop I'll put my own cold hard cash down for. Its the only laptop whose keyboard doesn't hurt my
hands. I'll happily fork out the extra money for a ThinkPad. They are worth it. They are robust, and when they do break the 3 year warranty is a great deal.

Before I joined Microsoft, I requested a ThinkPad. My boss Pete agreed, but they also issued me a Compaq Laptop. I hardly touching the Compaq. Several times a month I would get into a ThinkPad conversation with another Microsoft employee, usually they were complaining that they couldn't get their hands on one.

I even have a friend who kept with his Mac PowerBook the whole time he worked at Microsoft (!), but finally converted to a PC when he left Microsoft, moved to Adobe, and was issued a ThinkPad.

Lets keep our red-nubbies crossed that the ThinkPad doesn't change too much.