White-Box Desktops Still Best Sellers

In the survey, 57 percent of solution providers said they now build white-box desktops, and 48 percent said they build white-box servers. What's more, those numbers have increased steadily during the second half of the year.

Sysix Technologies, Westmont, Ill., was one solution provider to jump on the white-box bandwagon.

In September, the solution provider, which focuses on the enterprise market, decided to build its own PCs, partly because of competition from partner Hewlett-Packard, said John Sheaffer, president and CEO of Sysix.

The company will continue to partner with HP in the enterprise space and lead with HP in the PC arena but now wants to offer its customers an alternative to brand-name systems, Sheaffer said. Nearly one-third of Sysix customers already buy white boxes anyway, he added.

The survey also showed growing momentum for white-box sales among solution providers. Of those surveyed, 28 percent said white boxes were their best-selling servers, up from 20 percent in May and 24 percent in August. While that number exceeds the 18 percent of solution providers citing Dell Computer servers as their best-sellers, it lags behind the 39 percent citing HP.

But white-box systems continue to dominate in the desktop arena. Among respondents, 34 percent cited white boxes as their best-selling desktops. HP was cited by 24 percent and Dell by 28 percent.

Meanwhile, white-box notebooks continue to hold their ground among SMB solution providers. Thirteen percent cited white-box notebooks as best-sellers.

More important, white boxes are now running neck-and-neck with market leader IBM among solution providers responding to the survey. Fourteen percent of respondents named IBM as the maker of their best-selling notebook.