The sale of desktop PCs in the UK has again fallen in the last quarter, with a leading analyst finding that investment in the computing solution has dropped by 5.1 per cent.

HP remained steadfast against the wider effects of the economic downturn, retaining its standing as the number one provider of PCs and registering a fall of 6.8 per cent, resulting in a market share of 22.2 per cent.

However, the same thing could not be said for Dell, which took a huge 22 per cent hit in sales and exporting around half the number of PCs as the top brand.

The organisation attributed the problems in the PC market to the obvious financial climate but also the major shift in focus to more portable computing systems such as netbooks and notebooks.

One winner in this sector was Acer, which announced that it had gained over 40 per cent in sales of notebooks alone, making it the third-largest provider of computer systems in the world.

Acer began trading in 1976 and ranks first in the notebook market in 13 countries across the world, including Italy, Spain, Russia and Poland.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.