Four in ten life sciences companies plan to acquire hardware from Apple in the coming year, making it the second most popular hardware vendor in the sector behind Dell, according to research by IT market watcher IDC.

Even more surprisingly, 20% of companies in the industry plan to buy Apple software in the coming year, second only to Oracle.

IDC asked 115 life sciences companies based in the US and Western Europe, which hardware, software and IT services suppliers they plan to buy from in the coming year.

Dell dominated the hardware category, with 45% of respondents saying they plan to buy Dell hardware in the next 12 months. Dell has held the top spot in IDC’s life sciences IT survey for five years now.

Apple was not far behind, though, with 39% of respondents said they plan to buy Apple hardware in the next year. This proportion has more than tripled since 2009 – the year before the iPad tablet device was launched. “The new results underscore the notion that the iPad is helping Apple become a dominant player in the life sciences,” IDC said.

In the software segment, a quarter of companies said they plan to buy Oracle software in the coming year. Again, Apple was not far behind with 20% of respondents, pushing it up from fifth place in last year’s study to second place this year.

The survey also asked companies about their IT services spending in the coming year. Accenture took the top spot with 10% of respondents planning to use its services in the coming year. IBM was number two followed by Cognizant, whose proportion of respondents grew from 1.7% last year to 5.2%.

Hewlett-Packard’s popularity as an IT services provider has dropped rapidly. In 2010, it was the number provider, but HP fell to third place in 2011 and fifth in 2012. The popularity of HP’s hardware has also dropped, with 22% of 2012 respondents planning to buy HP in 2012, compared to 32% in 2011.