Hewlett-Packard (HP) has launched twenty new business notebooks in Taiwan including high-end EliteBook, mid-range ProBook and entry-level models under its HP or Compaq brands.

Of the seven high-end EliteBooks HP has launched, six are manufactured by Compal Electronics and one by Inventec, while the other nine ProBooks and four entry-level models are shared by Quanta Computer and Wistron, according to market watchers.

Commenting on Europe's financial crisis, HP Taiwan vice president and personal computing systems group manager Monty Wong said that the company is not affected much by the issue since it has already formed a complete lineup for all its products and is capable of fully satisfying different levels of demand. In addition, HP also has a strong channel network in each regional market and fluctuations in a single market will not affect the company seriously.

Market watchers have confirmed Wong's statement as first-tier notebook makers' order volumes from HP have not fluctuated much despite several other notebook vendors reducing their orders. The market watchers noted that HP's orders will become key to each maker maintaining revenue performance in the second quarter.

Wong cited IDC figures that Taiwan's IT spending will reach US$6.14 billion in 2010 with the hardware segment to reach US$3.82 billion, therefore he expects replacement trends in the enterprise PC market to build in the second half of the year.