A while ago, Lenovo pulled the plug on the old ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) infrastructure and announed that they would return in the beginning of May with a new and improved system. While I am all for improvement and progress, I questioned why Lenovo had to completely remove the old (somewhat) working driver repository before the "new and improved" system was in place. I was willing to live with that, as long as we got a new and improved system in place. I was, in fact, looking forward to see what Lenovo was up to.
Today, I was pointed to this little gem on the Lenovo site
Lenovo is changing the way customers obtain updates for their PCs and Servers.
- For our PC customers, automatic updates via ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) are being discontinued. Customers can continue to download updates by accessing the Lenovo support site at Lenovo Support & downloads. Lenovo is pursuing alternative solutions for system updates and future offerings will be communicated through the new Lenovo Message Center Plus.
I'm sorry Lenovo, but completely discontinuing TVSU is not "changing the way customers obtain updates", it's telling your users that you don't value their time. Sadly, this is not the first time I've had that experience with Lenovo. I know this is pretty harsh, but consider the following scenario:
- You run an IT-department when you standardize on Lenovo Thinkpads for your mobile workforce.
- As a consequence of your standardization efforts you set up several deployment methods for these Thinkpads
- Seeing that your preferred vendor provides you with tools like ThinkVantage® ImageUltra™ Builder, and ThinkVantage® System Update you decide to spend considerable time investigating and perfecting your deployment methods based on these vendor supplied tools that actually adds value to your hardware investments. It's kind of magic, but it works!
- Lenovo then pulls the rug from under your feet and you basically have to start over.
This is the scenario I'm currently facing. Newer Thinkpad models, like the t400 and t500, are (naturally) not supported by the aging ThinkVantage® ImageUltra™ Builder (The readme for the trial download was last updated in 2007). Since we use it for deploying our base business OS and a minimal set of drivers this was a problem for us. After investigating a bit, we decided to try and give Lenovo a call and see if someone could help us out getting it to work on newer models.
I still can't believe how incredibly difficult it as to get support for that particular piece of software. Calling Lenovo support was useless, they didn't even know what product we were talking about. To this date, we have been unable to contact anyone in Lenovo, or IBM for that matter, that can help us with technical issues with it. No one. None. Zero! We did manage to get the basic drivers working inside the deployment image we have after quite a bit of investigation and trial and error on our own, no thanks to Lenovo.
So, where does ThinkVantage® System Update enter the picture? Well, we followed best practices and setup a minimal image that basically only includes networking drivers for the Thinkpad models we have. Then, and here's the magic part, the image installed ThinkVantage® System Update that connected to a local copy of the TVSU that contained the drivers we need for the rest of the devices. In reality, it's brilliant. Or, I should say that it was brilliant.
Now that Lenovo has yanked the foundation for our ImageUltra based installation services away from us, and we don't get support for it in the first place, what are we supposed to do? Manually download drivers and place it in the repository and hope the old TVSU client will find them?
Lenovo, I'm sorry, but this was not what you were supposed to be doing when you were "improving" the service. I've been a strong advocate for TVSU for a few years, even used it as a selling point when our business invests in hardware. Your most recent move has left me stranded, and now I need to start over setting up a distribution mechanism all over again. I know there are good alternatives to ImageUltra and, trust me, I know it has weaknesses, but I was willing to live with them as long as TVSU did the grunt work with regards to drivers. Right now Windows Deployment Services springs to mind, but that still leaves the problem with driver installation and management. TVSU sorted out that bit for us, and I'm sure Lenovo has other customers with similar stories.
I would really like to see the reasoning behind this decision, it sure doesn't make sense to me. But then again, I'm just a lowly user that actually utilized the very system Lenovo made available to me. How incredibly stupid of me.
Update 03. June 2009
: Lenovo reverses decision discontinue TVSU. Good one, Lenovo!