Contrary to media reports last week, IBM’s possible sale of at least some of its server business to Lenovo isn’t dead. So say employees at the RTP facility that is at the heart of a proposed deal.

“Don’t believe the recently planted ‘news’ that selling off system x [servers] won’t happen,” writers a poster at the Alliance@IBM union website.

“A lot of Developers have been told they will be reporting to Lenovo starting June 1st.

“It appears like IBM just doesn’t want to lose current x sales so is leaking some lies and confusion to buy it a few extra weeks.

“It’s another sleazy sham, much like the supposed dreadful quarter they trumped up to justify the big job cuts to come soon.”

So wrote the poster identified as  ”Long-Live-Building205.”

The Alliance is seeking tom represent IBM (NYSE: IBM) workers, and it screens comments before posts are allowed to appear on its website. So this post has credibility.

Adding to the talk that a deal isn’t dead is the latest report from Computer Reseller News, which broke the first story about a possible deal. 

“Contractors and employees at IBM’s Superlab, a research facility that handles development of firmware and other utilities for IBM servers, are still preparing to be transferred to Lenovo next month, despite reports that IBM’s talks to sell parts of its x86 business to the Chinese vendor have broken down,” CRN’s Kevin McLaughlin reports in a Monday story.

There are some 20 employees and contractors at the SuperLab, as IBM calls it, and based on CRN’s reporting it has sources on the inside of the lab’s wall providing the details about a Lenovo-IBM deal.

So what is the SuperLab?

Here’s how the facility was described for a tour it scheduled with N.C. State:

“Our March event will be a tour of the Modular and Blades SuperLab. This 4000 square foot lab is where the development and tests of the IBM Modular and Blade Systems occur. You will see different aspects of development from firmware to system board design to Bladecenter development, and all the rigors that we put our systems through, as the first customers, before our products are sent to manufacturing for volume production and general availability.”

CRN continues to stand by its initial reports.

“Many Superlab developers and engineers were told by IBM management in mid-April they’d be transitioning to become Lenovo employees on June 1, several sources with knowledge of the matter said,” McLaughlin says.

Lenovo has confirmed “preliminary talks” to make an acquisition, but so far now deal has happened.

And as Bloomberg reported last week, “the talks could resume later.”

Maybe they never stopped.

[IBM ARCHIVE: Check out more than a decade of IBM stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]

[LENOVO ARCHIVE: Check out eight years of Lenovo stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]