Dell Remains Strong In Enterprise PC Market

Dell, which is undergoing a major reorganization after losing significant market share to rival PC maker Hewlett-Packard, remains the leading supplier to North American and European companies, a PC buyers study released Tuesday showed.

Dell is way ahead of its closest competitors HP and Lenovo, supplying desktop and laptops to more than half of North American and European companies this year, Forrester Research said. Dell is particularly its strongest in the North American market, where it supplies desktops to 60% of businesses and laptops to 58% of companies.

HP, on the other hand, was a solid No. 2, supplying desktops and laptops to 27% and 21% of enterprises, respectively. HP improved significantly year-over-year, especially across laptops, gaining 6% in the North American enterprise notebook market and 5% in the European market. These gains were expected to continue as a result of HP refreshing its entire lineup this year of Intel-based laptops with the chipmaker's latest mobile platform.

Third-place Lenovo, which is investing heavily in building up its brand in North America and Europe, supplied desktops to 16% and laptops to 20% of enterprises.

Forrester's survey of 565 PC decision makers in enterprises found that the top three vendors supplied desktops and laptops to 87% of companies this year.

Next year, the top three vendors are expected to continue their dominance. When asked to name their future primary supplier, 48% of those surveyed said they'd choose Dell for desktops and 50% would chose the vendor for laptop. The numbers for HP were 22% and 17% for desktops and laptops, respectively; and for Lenovo, they were 12% and 15%, respectively. About 8% of decision makers said they hadn't yet chosen a supplier. The remainder of the market went to tier two suppliers, such as Acer, Apple, Fujitsu and Toshiba.

Dell, HP and Lenovo are expected maintain their dominance for three reasons: the high cost of switching suppliers, the difficulty in changing the request for proposal process, and relatively high satisfaction ratings, Forrester said. With little variation among the top three manufacturers around customer satisfaction, the trio was expected to hold on to their current market positions.

Lenovo, however, had the strongest relationship with its enterprise customers, with 45% reporting being "very satisfied," compared to 37% of Dell's and 27% of HP's customers.

Globally, HP is the largest overall supplier of PCs. Dell, however, remains the top supplier in the United States.

Dell is undergoing a major restructuring led by founder Michael Dell. Dell returned as chief executive this year following the resignation of Kevin Rollins.