One of our company's partners is about to upgrade 30 of their client-side computers/laptops and 6 servers. They haven't done many changes in about three years, but with new money in the bank, now is the time to set things right for them.

Computing speeds and sizes have changed dramatically in three years. The desktops they have running now are ancient compared to the new Pentium and Centrino-powered computers they are prepared to buy. They asked my advice on which brand to go with, and I have mixed feelings on which brand to buy. We often get asked by users at ChinaTechNews.com to recommend decent computers, gadgets, and services. While the following might cost us a few ad dollars, I think any responsible computer company should be able to separate editorial from advertorial (albeit I'm naive).

I have always liked Dell and a few years ago they had a very good leasing model running in China. Our own company has purchased Dell in the past and we have some Dell servers running in the USA. But only recently did they really make an effort to get Chinese consumers "connected" with their PCs, by putting Dell centers in major cities so consumers could first touch and view their possible purchases. My first Dell laptop purchased in 2000 in Beijing was bought with only their website's details to go on and I really wish I had been given the opportunity to touch it first. But in general they have provided good service. Most importantly, when you buy a Dell in China, you can get it serviced anywhere in China. But if you're planning to take your laptop overseas, that is another problem for which you'll need to purchase additional warranty coverage.

And Founder, Acer, or Asus? For these brands, we currently do have some of our own sales staff in Shenzhen and Beijing using Acer and Asus. And I've told friends to buy Founder for their home computers. These are generally less-expensive computers in China. And for laptops, Acer and Asus have really nice lightweight devices. The problem is that we have often run into problems with Acer laptops and batteries. Acer sometimes requires proof of purchase to sell us a laptop battery. Ostensibly, this is to stop people from using fake Acer laptops, but it causes headaches when a computer has already been "baoxiao'ed" and the accounting department needs to rustle through an audit from two years ago to find the original invoice.

And IBM? For those of you who have read our daily tech news website at ChinaTechNews.com since we started in 1999, you might remember some problems we had with IBM in 2000 and 2001. It got so horrendously bad that we had meetings with a VP in their Beijing offices; I personally emailed their former Chairman Lou Gerstner in Armonk, New York a few times; we contacted the Better Business Bureau in IBM's hometown in the USA; and finally when (separately, but unfortunately coincidentally) we published a number of negative articles on IBM's poor service in China, we received an unfriendly and ominous letter from IBM China's chief Henry WK Chow to stop reporting on these widely-reported issues in China. Thank goodness I've kept all my emails of that period — that IBM fiasco is going to be a good case study on how multinationals have the power to bully and shirk responsibility in China. Though I personally do now use an IBM Thinkpad (a gift), I told our partner not to deal with IBM. Lenovo now deals with IBM's Thinkpad models, but the previous horrible bullying service still resonates with me and sours me on the Big Blue Brother brand.

Apple? No. The cost is high and support is not as ubiquitous as for PCs in China. I really like Apple, but wouldn't use it in a business environment unless we purely ran a design house.

So what is my final advice for anyone looking at buying computers for a small or medium-sized company? Try to put a computer together yourself. A great desktop with a 17-inch screen can be put together for about RMB4000. And a fantastic laptop can be put together for about RMB8000. I caution anyone without an IT department not to try this themselves, though, because by putting a computer together yourself means you have no warranty on the entire computer (though you will have individual parts warranties). Therefore, you should buy a name-brand computer if you have no ready access to trained in-house technicians. And for the operating system, our partner is already using Linux, so installing Red Flag, Red Hat, or Ubuntu creates a dramatic cost drop. A top-end Professional-license of Windows Vista is going for somewhere around RMB3000 in mainland China, so that could double the cost of a desktop if you try to put it together yourself. I personally installed Ubuntu recently on a home computer and I like what I see.

As broadband speeds get faster and WLAN becomes ubiquitous, we're also going to see more thin-clients using grid computing techniques to gain CPU strength, use centralized server storage, and rely more on software-as-a-service applications. With all this in place, a computer's brand and operating system become transparent and irrelevant. Then it all comes down to service… and China has a long way to go before service is fair, contracts are honored, and customers come first.