Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi: ‘we are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China’

We’re guessing that Lenovo chairman Liu Chaunzhi didn’t intend spark a slew of sensational headlines when he spoke briefly with the Financial Times this week, but he did make a few statements that are hard to ignore (yet easily misinterpreted). The standout is that he reportedly said Lenovo is “lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China,” and that if “Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.” Of course, what’s easily lost following the “bad temper” bit is that Chaunzhi is actually sort of praising Apple (albeit in a roundabout way), and he even later goes on to describe Jobs as “a genius,” and the exception to his rule that a manager “needs to be the string on which he puts one pearl after another” — he says Jobs is instead “a big pearl.” For its part, while Apple hasn’t commented on Chaunzhi’s comments directly, it did point out that it’s opening a new store in Shanghai this Saturday, and that it’s on track to have 25 stores in the country by the end of next year.

Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi: ‘we are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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