So we have a stalemate, then? Lenovo is deadlocked with itself! They have dropped support for their Win7 ThinkVantage apps in Win8, they have published a new Win8 metro app to replace them, they locked it to OEM Lenovo licenses, and now they don't want to open it up and have any fools without Lenovo PCs install it.
Not that Lenovo can't just modify that app to check the Windows environment and abort at runtime when it finds a PC that it does not like.
I am sure the chain of events here start and end with a bad product manager who painted himself into this corner and then watched his development team get parceled out to work on their next projects. If they got put into some 6 - 9 month projects then putting them back on this would just cascade into every other project that would be delayed.
Based on the complete lack of meaningful feedback here, I assume that either the Lenovo support agents here really do not have a lot of direct communication with the development managers, or they do communicate a lot but they all know that no resources are assigned so they are not going to tell us that.
It's not "Lenovo's fault." It's probably one team manager / product manager's fault who was too distracted to see this trainwreck coming. And now you would have potentially multiple product launces affected by a maintenance issue.
Maintenance is seen as a cost. Yes, you generate repeat business by offering great service, and that can be significant, but in truth it is the new product launches, the first million sold, the next big thing that generates revenue for a company. It is hard to convince executives to divert resources from a project with forecast earnings tied to it and move them to a project with no earnings potential AND the act of transferring them delays your money makers.
No win scenario for anyone. We lose, Lenovo loses some repeat business, the developers / product managers that care lose sleep and confidence, and the world keeps turning and Lenovo stays profitable and Best Buy gets the next tablet in time for summer.