Lenovo on track for 2008 Olympics in Beijing

PC maker Lenovo is ramping up testing and integration work on the equipment and services it is providing the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, which are scheduled to begin in 500 days.

Lenovo began working on the Olympic Games in 2004, when it first announced its sponsorship agreement. The company has 30 people working on the project, which will see a range of products--printers and storage equipment, 300 servers, 800 desktops and monitors and 70 notebooks--in use.

"Everything from gathering and storing participants' data to displaying the scores to organizing all (the) activities of BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad), our products--and there will be at least 20,000 of them on-site--will be the backbone of the Games' technology solution," Alice Li, vice president for Olympic marketing at Lenovo, said Monday during a conference call.

Equipment supplied by Lenovo will support BOCOG, the International Olympic Committee, radio and television networks, commentators, judges, officials, athletes, media, national Olympic committees and Olympic sponsorship partners.

In addition to its Olympic sponsorship, Lenovo is also the official PC supplier to Formula One team AT&T Williams and the National Basketball Association.

Luke Anderson of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.