I know that's a pretty common occurrence of thinkpads, but I hadn't heard one that was strictly manufacture specific. Most thinkpads i've encountered are "Use Intel 5400AGN OR Broadcom'blahblahblah',not 'Use Intel Only', and all of those thinkpads i've experienced that with have had BIOS reflash available to work around that particular problem.

p.s. this message isn't intended for snark, it's intended to allow me to skip whichever thinkpad it is that's locked down. My bets are on one of the thin cant-take-the-battery-out ultrabook 'ThinkPads', but we'll see!