HP Regains Throne as Top PC Maker

Nick writes "HP is once again the leading PC manufacturer." From the article: "HP has snatched the PC crown from Dell's barely coherent clutches. It has taken HP close to three years to once again lead the market in worldwide PC sales. Under CEO Carly Fiorina and post Compaq, the company largely gave up on the tit-for-tat struggle with Dell for the PC top spot that had been so important to it over the years. Now it has reclaimed the #1 slot during the third quarter on the back of Dell's self-destruction. Overall, worldwide PC shipments hit 59.1m units in the third quarter - a 7 per cent rise from the same period last year, according to new data from Gartner. The US PC market, however, dipped 2 per cent, marking its first fall since mid-2002. Dell is particularly exposed to the US PC market, and it showed." Update: 10/20 16:37 GMT by Z : Switched link to a more current story.

Re:Funny how all reporters are now falling in line

[morgan_greywolf]

Now that everyone knows that HP-hired goons will go through your garbage, sit outside your house, and take pictures of you & your family...it seems everybody thinks HP is great!
I look forward to Sony, Microsoft, and SCO trying this next...

Yep. Zonk's so afraid, he's posting positive news articles about HP from nearly 4 years ago and passing them off as "news for nerds"!

Re:4 year old article

[Denney]

The correct link to the article is http://news.com.com/HP+regains+spot+as+No.+1+PC+ma ker+worldwide/2100-1003_3-6127339.html [com.com].

Re:Funny how all reporters are now falling in line

[Salvance]

Content is correct, just misprint in date ... here's the scoop from The Register [channelregister.co.uk]

Re:4 year old article

[drinkypoo]

I've always been a thinkpad guy but then I got my nw9440. I won't go into all the details but it's basically a mbp with some security hardware in place of the camera and lighted keyboard, and it's black. And it so far has given me basically no grief except that google desktop would crash the security manager. (I need to try that again, see if google's fixed it, or HP has.) Also, as long as you stay away from the low-end machines, HP has always been pretty nice. Ignore Vectras and Brios and such, everyone makes low-end machines, and check out Kayaks. Also since they hooked up with Compaq, both lines have improved. (This is a compaq.)

It's because Dell sucks

[cyberkahn]

I have worked with both Dell and HP business class solutions. Dell servers suck. I had RAID fail on me numerous times to include both hot spares failing to merge into an array to address a failed drive. In this instance I had to rebuild the entire volume and restore from tape. With Dell workstations lets talk about the GX270 constant issues with power supplies and capacitors going bad. These are known issues with this model yet Dell insists on a one for one swap for each PC. As soon as one PC is fixed and returned to the floor another one goes bad and we have to request either a motherboard or power supply to be replaced. On the other hand my HP DL series servers are like Maytag washers. I practically forget they are running in my racks. The same goes for HP business class workstations.

Re:Funny how all reporters are now falling in line

[Reverend528]

misprint in date

FTA: Hewlett-Packard regained its position as the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter, while the industry overall saw shipments increase in the quarter and in 2002 as a whole.

This isn't to say that HP hasn't regained the top spot, but this article actually is out of date. There is no typo. It's the wrong article.

Re:So what?

[businessnerd]

Actually the parent is right. The PC market has become commoditized to the point where PC manufacturers are making very little profit per unit. Apple is kind of an exception. While they are a PC manufacturer in the sense that Macs are "Personal Computers", but they are a niche market, high end hardware with an alternate OS. Becaue they are a niche, they can charge a premium for their product. They are the only game in town if you want OS X. Apple is more of a home computer company, not too many server sales or large quantity sales to corporations with the exception of graphic design studios and the like.

You get what you pay for

[DragonHawk]

"Four years ago, I purchased a Dell laptop for my son when he went off to college. It lasted all of a year before the hard drive died."

We've got a fleet of notebooks from Dell, Gateway, and HP. The hard drives in laptops all seem to die much more quickly vs those in desktops. I've always assumed it is due to the increased physical traumua a traveling laptop gets subjected to.

"After quite a bit of trouble with customer service reading scripts in Indiglish we finally got an RMA. "

When Dell sells you a computer, they also offer you a choice of service plans. If you go the cheap route, you get the guy in India reading a script in broken English for hours, and mail in service. If you buy the Gold support, you get a native English speaker, 1 minute hold times, and next-business-day, on-site service. Plus Accidental Damage replacement (you drop it, you break it, you get a new one).

With Dell, you get exactly what you pay for.

Re:You get what you pay for

[patryn20]

Maybe on the corporate side.....I had a four-year, on-site support for a home desktop that I could never get them to honor. I was actually told by the Indian call-center employee that he could not approve the on-site visit because he would be fired if he did. They were hired to keep costs low, so they were not allowed by their management to do anything that would result in a charge to Dell.

I didn't pay chump change for that support and over the course of two hard drive failures, sound card death, and eventual motherboard toastiness, I always ended up having to replace the parts myself on my own dime after days of trying to get them to honor the contract.

I have not bought a Dell since except for corporate installs. The corporate support has always been spectacular. Home became crap once they outsourced it. I hear tell, though, that they are bringing all support back to the USA. I hope so, because maybe then I can order from them again.