Dell Inc. is facing severe criticism in China for allegations that a US-based salesperson sent an email discouraging former IBM clients in America from buying Lenovo products.

"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 email 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 email irritated many Chinese. Many netizens expressed their indignation on the Internet.

A survey about the issue on sina.com.cn attracted around 82,000 participants by 9:00 a.m. Wednesday. 87.64 percent of respondents said the event is a serious violation of fair competition rules and 46.51 percent said the largest barrier for Lenovo's business expansion in the US is cultural difference.

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 email event, 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 high executive from Lenovo was happy that Dell's irregular behavior 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 said.

China's PC giant Lenovo, a listed company in Hong Kong in 1994, finalized acquisition of IBM's PC department last April.

In an open letter to the media on Tuesday, Dell said that the email event has aroused great attention from the company and that Dell is regretful for what its salesperson has done. The salesperson's behavior 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 percent in China's business laptop market, closely following the 14.6 percent of Lenovo and the 17.4 percent of IBM. 

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2005)