Hewlett-Packard poaches new head of Europe from Dell

Quinn will be tasked specifically with winning new blue chip enterprise accounts in Europe and beyond. He performed a similar role at Dell.

Quinn moved from Microsoft in 2007 to head up Dell's Scottish operation as director and general manager.

Two years later he combined the role with that of European Middle East and Africa (EMEA) vice president, still working out of Scotland.

On Friday, Dell confirmed Quinn's resignation "to take up a fresh challenge" and thanked him for helping raise its profile within the Scottish business community during its five-year life span. A search has been launched for a successor.

HP is fast consolidating its presence as the world's top PC manufacturer at the expense of Dell, whose chairman and chief executive Michael Dell is fending off calls to step down from the company he founded 26 years ago.

It comes as a five-year-old regulatory probe into fraud allegations by Dell left its founder facing the threat of a loss of shareholder confidence.

At a meeting last week in Round Rock, Texas, a quarter of the firm's shareholders withheld their support for automatically reinstating Michael Dell as chief executive.

The vote was detailed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Dell received the fewest votes in favour of all 11 directors up for election, but was reinstated to continue to head up the tech giant.

Silicon Valley commentator John Oates said: "It is a big psychological blow."

Quocirca's service director Clive Longbottom called for "fresh blood" at the top. "Somebody who can be a really good CEO, somebody who can make the hard decisions that Dell requires."

Last month the tech giant agreed to pay 64 million to settle SEC charges that it failed to disclose information to investors and used fraudulent accounting practices. Michael Dell and his former chief executive Kevin Rollins each agreed to pay a 2.5m fine.