I do not see how the customer benefits from this, because Lenovo is effectively offering its customers less choice. Supporting Linux tends to not cost anything up front and instead affects design decisions, decisions that lead to a better, more high-quality product. It is not as if much was spent on marketing Linux offerings, either.

This move is probably to appease Microsoft, who almost surely offers Lenovo discount Windows licenses for shunning Linux. This will improve Lenovo's bottom line, but will not give the consumer any more quality, any more service or support, and probably no change in price.

Of course, not supporting Linux has never stopped people from trying to run it anyway. But, think of it as a sign of things to come. No longer having any inclination to support Linux means that in the future they can go with completely proprietary components. Proprietary components that won't work in Linux, and are almost universally more unstable and buggy, on Windows and Linux, than their non-proprietary counterparts.

So, I'm calling this the beginning of the end of the ThinkPad's legendary quality. Smart move Lenovo.