HP trumpets Home Depot deal

The Atlanta-based home-improvement chain is buying the computers as part of an effort to standardize the PCs used in all of its 1,456 U.S. stores. The company will be using HP Compaq Evo D510s to handle a variety of tasks, including online training and in-store customer support.

An HP representative would not comment on the exact value of the deal, but agreed it is worth tens of millions of dollars. HP said it beat out Dell Computer for the win.

HP is working to reverse a slide in market share that analysts say could allow Dell to retake the overall PC sales crown from HP as early as this quarter.

"We're working on a lot of deals of this magnitude," said HP vice president Sam Mancuso.

In a statement, Home Depot executive Barbara Sanders said that by moving to one type of PC, Home Depot will cut down on the amount of time workers spend trying to troubleshoot computer problems.

"The increased capability we expect this effort to provide will pay equally good dividends in terms of productivity and customer service in our stores," Sanders said in a statement. "After all, the less time our associates spend on the telephone trying to reach the help desk, the more time they are able to spend on the sales floor helping our customers."

Meanwhile, Dell said Tuesday that it had won a deal to supply servers and storage to Creative Artists Agency for the company's data center. Dell said it won the business from HP.

Both HP and Dell have been touting recent large deals to try and claim momentum over rivals. Dell recently beat out HP for a server and storage deal with Web-hosting company Rackspace. HP has claimed wins with General Mills, Regal Entertainment and others.

However, Dell is clearly holding its own and then some.

Last week, the company upped its outlook for the quarter, noting particular strength in storage and servers.

"They are tough competition," Mancuso said of Dell. "We are going to keep trying to win more than we lose," he said.