Back in December 2004, the technology industry received confirmation that China could no longer be considered an emerging economy and that its firms were ready to compete with their peers on the world stage. Venerable IBM, the inventor of the modern PC, announced that it was selling its PC division to the little known Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, for $1.25 billion (€990 million).

That deal, formally concluded one year ago this week, made Lenovo the third-largest PC manufacturer in the world, albeit some distance behind the goliaths of the industry, Dell and HP. It was hardly a surprise that IBM had punted its PC division, which had been pulling down the company's overall financial results for a number of years, but few had expected Lenovo, which was little known outside Asia, to be the buyer.

One year on Mary Ma, chief financial officer of Lenovo, says that it's a case of "so far, so good" and the new Lenovo, as she refers to the post-acquisition entity, is ahead of the plan it communicated to the markets.

"We are satisfied with the first year, revenue has met expectations and our customers and staff are happy," says Ma. "We are a little bit different from other PC manufacturers. We position ourselves as a company who provides innovative products through the model the customer prefers."

The old Lenovo was extremely strong in China and other regions in Asia, where it mostly sold into the home and small business markets. In contrast, IBM's PC division was extremely strong in the corporate market. Ma sees the former as very much based on transactional sales, while the latter requires relationship building with large multinational organisations.

The challenge for the new company has been to merge those two models - no mean feat when you consider there are also cultural differences between the two organisations that were thrown together a year ago. Journalists who visited the new organisation in China last year noticed some distinct cultural differences between the way business is conducted in the US and in Asia.

While in China the chairman of a company is top dog, in the US and Europe, the chief executive is seen as the key executive. Similarly, executives of US companies are notoriously circumspect about comments to the media, while the Chinese are not afraid to give their opinion.

However, Ma rejects any suggestion that cultural differences have led to any conflict in the first year of the new Lenovo.

She believes key milestones such as integrating the two organisations six months ahead of schedule and establishing a global supply chain and production capacity would not have been possible without a true merging of cultures. "Without cultural integration of the two teams as a base, that would have been hard to implement," says Ma. "The two teams have been working hard to close the gap and eliminate any conflict in the alliance."

Part of the deal brokered between the two companies was that Lenovo got the rights to use IBM branding on its products for five years. This included the ThinkPad brand for laptops, which carries a lot of weight with corporate purchasers. Many analysts felt that would be essential for Lenovo to break into the business market outside China, but Lenovo surprised the industry in February by introducing the Lenovo 3000 line of desktops and laptops globally.

"The rationale for bringing the Lenovo 3000 brand to market earlier was that the ThinkPad brand is used for products at the premium end," explains Ma. "It doesn't include products for the small to medium business market, which are typically a transactional customer. The Lenovo 3000 products close that gap."

Recent research, published by market research firm Millward Brown, said Lenovo is close to being one of the top 10 globally recognised brands. (Microsoft, with whom Lenovo recently inked a partnership that commits it to buying $1.2 billion of Windows licences in the next year, is number one.)

That growth in recognition has no doubt been helped by high-profile sponsorships such as the association with the Winter Olympics in Turin and a deal just announced with Barcelona football club, which will see iconic Brazilian star Ronaldinho become a "worldwide brand ambassador" for Lenovo.

The year has not been without its speed bumps either. In March, the company announced it was cutting 1,000 staff, or 5 per cent of its global workforce as it consolidated its sales and back office functions. Steve Ward, the head of IBM's personal systems group, who made the transition to Lenovo as chief executive, departed just a year after the deal was announced.

The official line was that he had overseen the integration of the two firms and the time was right to pass the baton on to Bill Amelio, who had headed up Dell's operations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ma points out that Amelio brings his experience of Dell's lean and mean supply chain operations, and also has 18 years experience with IBM. Given that Lenovo seems to be trying to merge both companies' strategies, the choice of Amelio could yet turn out to be far-sighted.

A recent deal with the US state department for the supply of 16,000 PCs has also come under scrutiny from a government watchdog, the US-China economic and security review commission.

The commission and others in the US are concerned that the Chinese government, whose academy of sciences funded the foundation of Lenovo with a $25,000 loan in 1984, still retains a 27 per cent stake in the company.

With such control they feel it would not be impossible for the Chinese to install spying software on the PCs before shipping them to the US government.

Ma started her career with the academy of sciences before joining Lenovo in 1991.

In that role, she visited Ireland many times and admits to being very impressed with the Government policy of the last 15 years, particularly in terms of how it made the State attractive to overseas investors. She says that the Chinese government is on a similar drive to encourage external investment, but cautions foreign investors that "China is not a perfect market" and that they should focus on the potential of the economy in the longer term.

While the new Lenovo has met and beaten expectations in its first 12 months, if it doesn't continue to gain ground on Dell and HP in the next year, it will find out if investors and analysts are willing to extend it the same patience.