Roughly 24 hours ago DigiTimes reported that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Lenovo were expecting notebook shipments to fall 20 percent in the first quarter.

FORBES: More Bad News for Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony

Apple is primarily a consumer-oriented company with little presence in the enterprise PC sector, where computer makers like Dell, H-P and Lenovo dominate the business notebook market.

FORBES: Apple Just A Nibbler Into HP And Dell

The system also has more or less the same book-inspired shape as Lenovo's U-series Ultrabooks, meaning when the notebook is closed, the top and bottom edges protrude ever so slightly beyond the sides, sort of like a hardcover shell cradling a spine full of pages.

ENGADGET: blogger-avatar

But that progress has been slow, and Dell, which ranks behind HP and Lenovo in PC sales, still gets almost half of its revenue from its desktop and notebook computers.

FORBES: Dell Buyout, Once Deemed Unlikely, May Happen If Microsoft Gets Its Way