Inspur Group trying for IBM customers

Chinese server maker Inspur Group Ltd began a campaign to lure customers from International Business Machines Corp as the government studies whether domestic banks' reliance on IBM technology threatens national security.

Jinan-based Inspur on Wednesday unveiled its "IBM to Inspur" initiative aimed at taking the US company's market share in China, said a member of Inspur's marketing department who asked not to be named, citing company policy. Inspur hired more than 80 employees from IBM's hardware arm, he said.

The move may help Inspur capitalize on a dispute with the US after prosecutors there charged five Chinese military officers with allegedly hacking into American companies' systems. Toppling IBM in China would be a major challenge for Inspur, whose reported 36.7 billion yuan ($5.94 billion) of revenue in 2011 represented 5.5 percent of IBM's sales for that year.