With another disappointing revenue report out Tuesday and finger-pointing at its hardware unit as a significant reason for the bad news, IBM (NYSE: IBM) leadership is looking for a remedy to the server malady.

Is Lenovo the cure beyond more layoffs? Insiders say a new “resource action” (i.e. layoffs) is going to start soon under “Project Apollo.”

And one should never forget that Lenovo acquired a perceived malady from IBM in 2005: Big Blue’s struggling PC business, largely based in our neck of the woods.

Look how that deal turned out. Lenovo is now the globe’s No. 1 PC seller and is growing even as competitors shrink.

Could the same magic strike if Lenovo does an x86-focused deal?

Who bets against Lenovo these days? Look at the growth in PCs … in smartphones … in tablets … 

Lenovo is already making big plays in the server space with its own “Think” brand and a joint venture with EMC. New servers were supposed to be introduced this week, but the announcement has been placed on hold.

Is this another sign an IBM-Lenovo deal is in the works?

Lenovo wouldn’t say Tuesday why the server news was on hold. Earlier in the day, the world’s No. 1 PC maker issued a statement that it was in negotiations for a deal. But IBM wasn’t cited as a potential partner.

It’s worth noting that similar reports have surfaced in the past regarding potential Lenovo deals, from a possible IBM x86 server business unit deal a year ago to talk of a BlackBerry acquisition. So statements aren’t declarations of intent.

However, the continuing decline of IBM hardware sales certainly strengthens Lenovo’s hand in any negotiations.

“This will increase Lenovo’s negotiation power over the price,” Jun Zhang, an analyst with Wedge Partners Corp., told Bloomberg news.

Media reports have said that Lenovo and IBM were unable to make a server deal previously because they couldn’t reach agreement on valuation of the assets.

Martin Schroeter, IBM’s new chief financial officer, laid out the hardware challenges in a conference call with analysts Tuesday.

“Hardware continued to impact our overall performance. We are dealing with some challenges in our hardware business model specific to power, storage and X86,” he said.

“As expected, in System z, we are impacted by the product cycle as we wrap on very strong performance a year ago. Together, these dynamics significantly impacted our revenue growth and profit. In fact, our hardware segment profit was down over $750 million in the quarter and $1.7 billion for the year.”

The world’s rush to the cloud and virtualized data centers is cutting into traditional server sales, but Lenovo sees serves as a chance to broaden its reach in Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing’s “PC +” strategy to continue to diversify beyond PCs.

Lenovo operates its global executive headquarters in Morrisville and has a manufacturing facility in the Triad. Its server partner, EMC, also is a big operator in this region.

As is IBM, with some 9,500 employees across the state and a state-of-the-art server development lab.

So any server deal would be bhuge news not only for both companies but as well as the Triangle community itself.

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

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