RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC ? September 10, 2008: Lenovo today announced that Northern Michigan University deployed 6,000 ThinkPad notebooks to provide all full-time Wildcats easy and secure access to more than 700 Web-based classes this fall. Less than one month after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, student athletes enrolled in the United States Olympic Education Center at NMU are beginning to train for the next Games using ThinkPad notebooks.
This fall marks NMU?s 10th consecutive academic year as a ThinkPad University. Using their reliable and secure ThinkPad R61 notebooks, students can easily access course materials and information via the Internet. For example, students research financial statements of companies located throughout the world as part of business and accounting lessons. Chemical formulas written on an interactive whiteboard in science classes are wirelessly transmitted through the campus WiFi network to each student?s Lenovo notebook so they can focus on understanding the material, not writing it down.
The United States Olympic Education Center at NMU also utilizes ThinkPad notebooks to help train student athletes. The school?s weight lifting coach photographs athletes while they practice and then reviews their form with them frame by frame on his ThinkPad notebook. For Olympic wrestler and NMU junior Spenser Mango, his ThinkPad notebook has been an indispensable tool during his time at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, from live chatting with family, to storing photos to scoping out the competition.
?While I was in Beijing, my Lenovo ThinkPad notebook was the only tool for me to communicate with my friends and family in the U.S, and I also used it to scout video footage of my opponents and to review my own matches,? said Mango. ?During the school year, I take my ThinkPad notebook to class and access my homework on the Web when I?m traveling for meets. My college experience would be completely different and not nearly as engaging without my Lenovo PC.?
NMU maintains a Web course management system that allows professors to distribute syllabi, assignments, test scores and class updates to students using their ThinkPad notebooks. More than 2,000 classes have been registered via the Web course management system to-date, and 724 of those courses will be offered to students during the fall 2008 semester. The Web-based system allows students to have course materials at their fingertips, anytime, anywhere. This is especially helpful for student athletes who often do schoolwork, communicate with professors and submit assignments using Wi-Fi on their ThinkPad notebooks and cellular broadband-enabled NMU team buses while traveling for games.
?We continue to offer Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks to level the playing field for all incoming students and ensure everyone has the best PC tools available for a dynamic learning experience,? said Gavin Leach, Northern Michigan University vice president for finance and administration, Northern Michigan University. ?As the only public university in Michigan that provides each student with a PC, Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks have supported the students? evolving needs and enhanced our faculty?s teaching techniques over the past decade.?
Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks are equipped with ThinkVantage Technologies, a suite of tools designed to reduce IT help desk visits and ensure that students have a productive and reliable computing experience. For example, Rescue and Recovery provides students a one-button recovery tool to retrieve lost or corrupted projects and assignments. The Active Protection System protects the PC hard drive in case students accidentally drop their ThinkPad notebook.
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building exceptionally engineered personal computers. Lenovo?s business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group?s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see www.lenovo.com.
