"Dell is the bane of China's IT hardware industry," said Fang Dongxing, famous IT analyst with blog.com. "It not only undermines the advantages of Chinese companies in cost and price, but also threatens its Chinese rivals with the strong weapons of global purchasing power and international brand recognition," Fang said.
In the alleged e-mail published last week by a Chinese business newspaper, a Dell salesperson wrote, "As you know Lenovo is a Chinese government owned company that recently purchased IBM's desktop business. While the US government has given its stamp of approval to continue to purchase these units, people must understand that every dollar clients spent on these IBM systems is directly supporting/ funding the Chinese government."
The e-mail irritated many Chinese. Many netizens expressed their indignation on the Internet. A survey conducted by major Chinese web portal, sina.com.cn attracted around 82,000 participants till Wednesday. Some 88 per cent of respondents said the event is a serious violation of fair competition rules.
Analysts predicted that Dell's sales in China might suffer following this event. "Unfair competition from rivals is not rare for Chinese companies in the international market," said Lu Benfu, another IT analyst, adding that some foreign companies always link their Chinese rivals with politics when they run into heated competitions.
In response to the e-mail, a spokesperson with Lenovo said that in the last two months they have frequently experienced discrimination motivated by politics in the US.
"We are disappointed about what Dell has done," the spokesperson said, stressing that as a well-known international company, Dell should follow basic business rules and respect the governments and companies from other countries.
A senior Lenovo executive was happy that Dell's behaviour was finally exposed. "Dell has many clients in the Chinese government, yet you see how difficult it is for us to develop clients in the US government," the executive was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
China's PC giant Lenovo acquired IBM's PC department last April. Meanwhile, in an open letter to the media on Wednesday, Dell said that the e-mail has aroused great attention from the company and that Dell regrets what its salesperson has done. The salesperson's behaviour did not represent Dell, the company said.
Dell has nearly 4,500 employees in China. In the first quarter this year, the company reported a market share of 13.3 per cent in China's business laptop market, closely following the 14.6 per cent of Lenovo and the 17.4 per cent of IBM.
© 2025