While Dell, Avanade, Accenture and HP agreed with Microsoft to sell its Surface devices, Lenovo declined to follow suit.

A report on Microsoft News said that at the Canalys Channel Forum, Lenovo president and COO Gianfranco Lanci told the attendees of Microsoft's proposal to sell Surface more than a year ago but they declined.

"I said no I don't see any reason why I should sell a product from within brackets, competition," he said.

The Lenovo executive said not only have they seen Microsoft Surface as a rival product but the Window software maker is a "partner on certain things" and "competitor" that "we will need to be a little bit careful."

HP CEO Dion Weisler shared they sell Surface because of their customers.

"These are customers we have been working with for many, many years and we don't simply want to cede those relationships to a competitor, so we said 'OK, we'll participate in that'. The executive said, though they will sell and support Surface but it is not their first preference."

For their part, Dell chief commercial officer Marius Hass said their enterprise customers asked Dell to manage and deploy the devices.

The customers wanted "consistent engagement model" and the "same eco system" which Dell provides for its own package. Instead of telling their customers they are not interested since they are competing products, they say "'Mr and Mrs customer, we'll take care of you', and that's what we did," Hass said.

According to Ars Technica, Microsoft was once a software firm but also became a hardware company which complicates its relationships with hardware makers.

Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus said they will have a "serious talk" about the encroachment of Microsoft into hardware.

There is an implication that the Surface Pro draws interest from the enterprise sector so it is not surprising if PC OEMs have come up with Surface-like devices like Dell XPS 12, HP Spectre X2, Google Pixel C and Apple's iPad Pro. In September, Lenovo announced MIIX 700 which looks like Microsoft's Surface.