Getting some new laptops for your small and medium businesses and at a loss where to begin?

Perhaps knowing the top choices by large and small businesses will help you narrow down to some vendors to consider. To this end, J. Gold Associates did a survey of 340 companies in Q4 2008 from North America and Western Europe on the primary choice of laptop suppliers (pdf) favoured by businesses in both regions.

The study found that the top vendor in North America is Dell, with a whopping 52 percent of surveyed companies specifying the Texas-based computer maker as their primary supplier of laptops. Hewlett Packard came in at a distant second, garnering 24 percent, while third place goes to Lenovo with just over 10 percent.

SMBs still pondering over whether to offer Apple's MacBook laptops in their organization will be interested to know that Apple came up on only a miniscule portion of the responses. In addition, little gain is expected for the next three years, based on forward projections obtained by the same companies. It is clear that most organizations do not believe they can achieve sufficient business value to consider buying into the Mac platform.

Despite the growing popularity of laptops, detractors might question the entire notion of buying laptops at all. They might point to its slight price premium over a traditional desktop and risk of lost laptops as ample justification to stick to the traditional desktop computer.

On the flip side of the coin, a workforce equipped with laptops will be able to work from just about any venue.  It is undeniable that such portability is a crucial underpinning of a Business Continuity strategy called teleworking. In the face of a pandemic or natural disaster, the ability to for an SMB to embrace teleworking could mean the difference between business-as-usual or cessation of all business activities.

Still, you will be glad to know about the various encryption technologies that will keep the data stored on laptops safe from prying eyes.  I shall cover this topic soon.