ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

Lenovo promises to create $1 billion worth of business for the EMEA channel in return for helping achieve its goal-- becoming #1 EMEA PC vendor in the financial year ending March 2013.

Speaking at the Lenovo EMEA channel conference, Berlin, EMEA president and senior VP Gianfranco Lanci says ""If we look at the overall PC industry, most of our competitors are struggling in terms of performance. But for the past two years we have been the fastest-growing company in the PC market... And this build-up of a profitable and sustainable business model has been because of how we work with partners and the channel."

Lenovo has big plans for both consumer and SMB markets, with a number of future product launches. It is also taking on new partners, and says it on-boarded 4000 partners across EMEA over the past 6 months.

The Galaxy S3 is more than a flagship smartphone for Samsung-- it also launches Music Hub, the Samsung take on online music services of both iTunes and Spotify variety.

Initially exclusive to the Galaxy S3 (but will also launch on PC and other Samsung devices soon enough), Music Hub offers streaming, radio stations, cloud-based music storage and a music store, with a catalog of 19m songs courtesy of digital content technology provider 7digital.

The service will be available in free (offering 30-second song previews) and premium (with €9.99 monthly subscription) versions.

VIA wins a Computex 2012 Best Choice award for the USB 3.0 Active Optical Cable (AOC)-- a means of extending USB 3.0 cable reach from 3m to up to 100m.

It features the VIA VO510 5-Gigagit optical transceiver (using light rather than electric signals), and is compliant with SuperSpeed USB electrical specifications. With an ultra-thin profile and long reach, the USB 3.0 AOC is ideal for of applications demanding rapid data transfer and HD multimedia capabilities.

It is also highly resistant to EMI, and doesn't radiate EMI of its own.

Go VIA Receives Best Choice of Computex 2012

In a bid to boost both consumer and cloud storage businesses Seagate buys 65% of France-based LaCie, with a deal that values LaCie at around $186 million.

LaCie consumer and SMB storage products include USB HDDs, NAS, RAID appliances and optical appliances. It also has a cloud storage service (Wuala) and a strong presence in Apple-related storage.

The purchase also represents a move towards more international waters for the California-based Seagate-- unlike Seagate, Lacie is successful in the European channel.

LaCie chairman and CEO Philippe Spruch will join Seagate, where he will lead the company's consumer storage business.

Go Seagate to Acquire Controlling Interest in LaCie