I was reading an article about Hewlitt-Packard and a sentence jumped out at me. The wording made me think that Lenovo had purchased Dell. My eyes shot wide open and I went googling and discovered that no, this bizarre thing had not happened. What happened was not that Lenovo had taken over Dell, but rather that they overtook Dell as the #2 computer seller in the world. I actually have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m all about the Thinkpad. On the other hand, Dell is an American company and I tend to root for American companies in the international marketplace (even if I don’t purchase their products).
In any event, it listed the top five makers in order: HP 17.7%, Lenovo 13.5%, Dell 11.6%, Acer 10.6%, ASUS 6.2%.
It seemed to me that Apple was missing from this. And bizarre that Lenovo was actually #2. And shouldn’t Toshiba be on there? Then I realized that this was the world market, so I looked at the US market: HP 28.9%, Dell 21.9%, Apple 12.9%, Toshiba 8.4%, Acer 7.4%.
That struck me as reasonable but for one thing: I never see HP’s anywhere!. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I see far more Thinkpads than HP’s out there. The workplace? Everywhere I’ve worked, just about, has gone with Dell. Maybe the home desktop market is where HP does well. But it’s just weird that they are so significantly on top and they’re maybe the fifth or sixth name that comes to mind when I think of computer brands.
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I never see HP’s anywhere!
Admittedly, I don’t see them too often, but I’ve seen them in a few offices. They’re usually the alternative that I see to desktop PCs in places that don’t use Dell, but don’t trust Lenovo, although, I’ve seen far more Lenovo desktops than HP desktops. You may be right about HP aiming for the home market, but maybe we’re just not in places where they’re selling well.
FWIW, globally things are different, so while Apple is popular in the US, it’s non-existent overseas, and Lenovo is one of the top brands in China. In Germany, you’d lose track over the number of Fujitsu-Siemens desktops that you’d see as public terminals or desktop clients.
but I see far more Thinkpads than HP’s out there
It’s hard not to find a ThinkPad during peak hour commutes or rides on Amtrak within the corridor. They’re basically with the corporate set that have laptops issued to them by IT, but there are a few people like myself who still swear by them for home usage.
Speaking of that, what do you think of the new keyboard on the new T430/X430? It seems that everybody hates it except for a few people who have used it, and those who have used it tolerate it, but don’t quite love it. I’d wonder if this will backfire given that Lenovo could easily build more sales to non-ThinkPad junkies, but lose the core who buy outside of IT purchasing.
You may be right about HP aiming for the home market, but maybe we’re just not in places where they’re selling well.
There very well may be a regional component to it.
FWIW, globally things are different, so while Apple is popular in the US, it’s non-existent overseas, and Lenovo is one of the top brands in China.
Yeah, that was one of the reasons that the original list surprised me so much. Then I thought “Oh yeah, the world isn’t America.” But HP was on top of both, which I still find surprising.
Speaking of that, what do you think of the new keyboard on the new T430/X430?
I was surprised to hear that they uniformly plan to go with the new keyboards after the 430/530 line, given the popularity of the existing keyboards. The one person I know who has tried the new keyboards (who was a fan of the old) thinks they’re fantastic.
I’ve never been that big on keyboards, so it doesn’t matter that much to me once I get used to the new one. Thinkpads never matched Toshiba in this regard anyway. As long as Thinkpads are the only big name with the eraserheads, though, I can’t imagine switching.