IBM should continue its innovative spirit by focussing on brand strengths and positioning challenges.

They should try and bring innovative designs to the marketplace. Also, IBM should work on media channels in order to maintain its market share as the customers are hesitant about the quality of the product. This would help Lenovo as it relies on both customer and business markets. Lenovo has launched a new campaign for its laptops of- Do attitude . The campaign is targeted to the youth and has helped increase brand recall. The same campaign should be continued to further increase brand awareness. Lenovo hired Saif Ali Khan as their brand ambassador. His brand image helped Lenovo increase it brand equity and the company should continue associating with high equity brands which will help leverage its image inturn.
While its strength still lies in the business-focused ThinkPad line, Lenovo has a decent selection of consumerfocused notebooks and netbooks. It's not as robust as Dell or HP (there's nothing above 16 inches), but the company does offer a handful of configurations for each model.

In the end, as the competition is tough, IBM should act fast in order to avoid rumors spreading and hence hampering the image of the IBM-Lenovo brand.