Study: HP is world's top chip buyer
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Hewlett-Packard will shell out $16.1 billion for chips in 2005, but Dell's wallet is wide open too.
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(InfoWorld) - PC vendors reported global shipment growth of 12.5 percent in the second quarter as every major vendor except Dell posted a double-digit percentage increase in unit shipments compared to the same period last year, according to a report released Wednesday by IDC. Dell shipped 4.9 percent fewer PCs during the quarter than it did in 2006 as the company continued to struggle with a corporate restructuring effort that has included deep job cuts, changes in executive leadership, and a new strategy of selling computers through retail channels instead of only online. In contrast, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) consolidated its position as the world's largest PC vendor with unit shipment growth of 36.5 percent. Overall, vendors sold 58.8 million PCs in the quarter, IDC said. A report released on the same day by Gartner showed similar results with Dell sliding 5.5 percent compared to HP's growth of 36.6 percent. Gartner reported that global PC shipments rose 11.7 percent to 61.1 million units. HP is seeing good results because of a multifaceted approach that allows the company to concentrate its sales efforts on new regions if sales slump in another sector, said David Daoud, manager of the personal computing and PC tracker programs at IDC. "They are not putting all their eggs in a single basket," he said. "That is the result for a company that has adopted a multifaceted approach. PC shipments were slightly better than expected in the U.S., but they have done even better outside the U.S. in emerging markets and western Europe. So they can manage multiple regions." Despite the contrast in trends, none of the top five vendors changed their worldwide rankings by market share. For the quarter, HP claimed the top spot with 19.3 percent of global PC sales volume, leading Dell with 16.1 percent, Lenovo with 8.3 percent, Acer with 7.2 percent and Toshiba with 4.1 percent, according to IDC. The Gartner study showed the same rankings. However, Acer could soon begin to climb the rankings, if its success continues. The company improved its PC shipment volume by 55.4 percent in the second quarter, pulling close behind Lenovo, which grew at 22.3 percent. "Acer is laser-focused on particular segments, especially SMB and channel resellers," Daoud said. "They are just plowing." In the U.S., Acer is only the sixth-biggest PC vendor but showed the fastest rise in shipments, improving by 163.8 percent over the second quarter of 2006. Overall, the U.S. market is lead by Dell with 28.4 percent market share by shipments, then HP with 23.6 percent, Gateway and Apple with 5.6 percent each, Toshiba with 5.3 percent, and Acer with 5.2 percent. IDC counts PC shipments including sales of desktops, notebooks, ultraportables, and x86 servers, but not handhelds. Overall, the global market achieved its 12.5 percent shipment growth in the quarter thanks to good activity in the Asia-Pacific region and to slightly better than expected activity in the U.S., Daoud said. That growth rate was higher than the first quarter, when shipments rose 10.9 percent over that period in the previous year, and higher than the second quarter of 2006, when shipments rose 9.7 percent year on year. For the future, consumers continue to buy notebooks instead of desktops as the cost premium between the two models has narrowed to its smallest differential yet. IDC forecast strong growth in the second half of 2007 but said that market competition will be more complex than just cutting prices. Instead, PC vendors will try to get customers' attention with system design, customer service, channel coverage, and market expansion.
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HP appears to have maintained its lead over Dell as the world's largest PC supplier in the third quarter of 2007, extending a slim margin it established last year.
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IBM's BlueGene/L remains king of the hill among supercomputers on the Top500 Supercomputing Sites list released today. But Hewlett-Packard Co. now claims the most computers on the list.
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Sales lull has ended IBM squeaked by Hewlett-Packard to maintain its top position in worldwide server revenue during the first quarter this year, according to a new report.â¦
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November 24, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Technology giant HP  announced on Tuesday it led the competition in worldwide server shipments for the 10th consecutive quarter, according to third quarter 2004 figures released by IDC.
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Today, the first preliminary numbers for worldwide PC unit shipments from electronics research firm iSuppli are in: Dell lost 1.6% in global PC market share between 2005 and 2006, and its PC shipments declined 8.6% for the year. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, gained 2.7% of market share for the year, and shipped more than 20% more PCs than Dell during the fourth quarter.
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By Michelle Kessler  SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard's snooping scandal has besmirched the company's reputation -- but many other things are going great for the computer giant, tech analysts say.
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Dell remains on top of the worldwide market, research shows.
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Many buyers have become smarter, HP's Fiorina says.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. , the  world's No. 2 personal computer maker, reported on Wednesday a  forecast-beating profit on sales growth across its main  divisions and unveiled a record $6 billion share buyback.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- The latest results on the server market from research firm Gartner show IBM and Hewlett-Packard dueling for the top spots in terms of revenue and shipments.
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HP has passed IBM in the number of supercomputers in operation and enjoys the largest market share.
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InfoWorld - IBM still operates the fastest supercomputer in the industry, but rival Hewlett-Packard&#160;has more of them in operation, according to a closely watched global survey released Wednesday.
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The world&#39;s top PC vendor, Hewlett-Packard, beat competitors Dell, Lenovo, and Apple to provide the best online customer support, according to a survey released on Tuesday by The Customer Respect Group.HP was also rated as providing the best online customer service among a sample of 18 technology companies surveyed, ahead of Intuit, Xerox, Microsoft, and Lexmark, according to the survey, which rated online support for the first quarter of 2008.Using metrics, including Web site usability, content accessibility, and responsiveness to queries, the survey independently measured a customer&#39;s interaction with a technology company via the Internet, the company said.Dell lagged in 12th place behind hardware vendors HP, Lenovo, Apple, and Gateway, according to the survey. Dell has a good community site linked from the home page, but the support pages are difficult to locate, said Terry Golesworthy, president of The Customer Respect Group.&quot;I think the story with Dell is that they have excellent materials and content, but it is not always as usable by the more naive users,&quot; Golesworthy said. Dell needs to mature support to cater to new users without neglecting the self-service experts, Golesworthy said.Apple&#39;s product offerings are fairly simple compared to Dell&#39;s, and so is its online support, Golesworthy said. Apple provides no chat or e-mail support options and encourages users to contact Apple through stores and by telephone to resolve issues.Apple&#39;s message may be about being simple, but a major glitch could become a big problem as self-help provided by Apple is minimal, Golesworthy said. Apple has plenty of technical articles on its Web site, which could be hard to locate at critical times.While some issues linger, vendors are finding better use of technologies&#160;such as&#160;RSS, online chat, e-mail, forums, and self-support Web content to support novice and expert PC users, the survey said.Technical customers are generally well serviced on location, so companies are looking to provide more basic information to support novice PC users, Golesworthy said. The documentation on some Web sites is being aligned for novice users to first identify a problem, then download the relevant drivers and programs to solve problems.Companies are also adopting more interactive and real-time techniques to provide customer support, the survey said. Online chat is challenging e-mail as a support option, with more than 50 percent of companies surveyed including online chat, an improvement from 30 percent six months ago.Online chat provides quicker response, cuts down on customer support costs, and eliminates user concerns about speaking to support agents with foreign accents, Golesworthy said.Some Web sites had data-intensive home pages that took time to load, but it could become commonplace as companies try to provide better and more interactive support to users, the survey said.Two upcoming technologies -- remote support and intelligent monitoring -- could help improve customer support provided by vendors, Golesworthy said. With remote access, technicians will assume control of a machine from a remote location to fix a problem. Instead of wading through pages of content to diagnose an issue, intelligent monitoring will provide a clearer choice for users to diagnose and resolve issues.Sun was rated as having the simplest Web site, followed by Xerox, Microsoft, and Apple. Intuit was rated as being most responsive to customers&#39; problems, followed by Microsoft, Symantec, and HP.
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InfoWorld - Swelling demand for high-end systems in the fourth quarter pushed the global server industry to its highest annual revenue since the market peaked in 2000 as IBM&#160;and Hewlett-Packard held onto their top rankings.
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No hard feelings. Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) has hired away hundreds of engineers from Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ). However, it is unlikely to cause friction between the chipmaker